Harry Potter, The Orphan Who Survived: Remastered
by Cain Crimson-Blade
Summary: Blood and darkness are the domains of the night, and to master them takes sacrifice. A young man ventures into the night in order to get revenge for a wrong committed against him, and his hatred burns like hellfire in his chest. But anything could happen along the path of vengeance, and in this world of darkness, nothing is certain. He learns this when a flower lands in his palm.
1. Chapter 1

**The Yellow–Eyed Demon**

 _ **August 3rd, 1993**_

 _ **London, England**_

A boy with short, black, messy hair walked through the throng of people on the London streets at night, his icy, emerald green eyes flittering about, landing on people's hands, pockets, waists, and chests, seemingly in constant search of any kind of weaponry. His body was covered by a dark Henley shirt and a black leather jacket, and his jeans were a dark grey. Finishing the ensemble was a pair of black trainers. A red, seemingly irritated scar in the shape of the lightning bolt occasionally peeked out from under his hair, marring his otherwise seemingly flawless forehead.

He strode confidently down the street, his hands in his pockets. The sound of a radio reporting on several murders reached his ears, and he briefly stopped up and listened intently to the radio broadcast for almost a minute, drawing a few awkward looks, and then continued on with the barest hints of a smirk.

•••

"Earlier this week, a girl aged fifteen walked into a London police station with torn clothes, on the brink of a mental breakdown," the English, female voice on radio spoke clearly. "When she calmed down, she was able to inform the police that she had been assaulted and nearly raped by a man, whose body the police recovered later when the girl told them where the assault took place. The girl, whose name remains confidential to protect her identity and the identity of her family, has confirmed to the police that she was saved from her attacker by a boy around her own age. She claims that her saviour was a boy, fourteen or fifteen at most, with dark hair and dark clothes. While it is almost certain that she has suffered traumatically, and as such may have altered memories of the event, she swears that his eyes were yellow and glowing in the darkness.

"However, an anonymous source claims that similar cases have been investigated in the past few months; several convicted murderers, rapists, and kidnappers have been found dead, some of which were seen killed by, and I quote, 'a single shot to the forehead in execution by a yellow–eyed, cold–blooded demon'. While this individual has saved a girl's life, dignity, and possibly her sanity, as well as killed individuals who committed heinous crimes, he has been reported to have killed these individuals, who reportedly number around twenty to thirty, he is still a cold–blooded murderer. If you see the Yellow–Eyed Demon, report it to the police immediately. He is armed and dangerous, despite reports suggesting a young age."

The older man standing behind the bar counter looked sceptically at the radio before he reached over and changed stations. After that, he went back to wiping the wet, sticky counter. He had better things to do than listen to ridiculous radio hosts spouting supernatural nonsense.

•••

" _Please..." the man rasped out, a little spittle of blood escaping his split, bloody lips as he clutched his chest. "Spare me." His left eye was swollen shut, the blood underneath his skin darkening it to a deep purple. His right eye, however, was pushing out silent tears as he stared up at the person holding the black pistol to his forehead. "I'm sorry."_

" _You're not sorry for what you did," a dark, yet young voice countered, void of all emotion. The person who owned it was hidden in the deep, dark shadows of the night covering the alley. The only visible feature other than his waist and legs were his eyes; yellow, glowing, predatory in nature, but still calm, icy, and lacking in any kind of empathy or sympathy. "You're sorry that I caught you doing it, and you're afraid I'm going to kill you."_

 _The beaten and bloodied man lowered his head, and his shoulders began shaking as the sobs escaped him._

" _And I am."_

 _The man turned and tried to crawl away from the shorter menace, desperately dragging himself along the ground; his legs, bent and broken in a gruesome display of brutality, were useless. His sobs became cries of fear and pain both, and scared whimpers came from behind a car parked in the alley as he dragged himself past the end. As he tried to reach out, the young girl curled up against the wall and car, no older than fifteen or fourteen, started squirming and wailing again, her shredded blouse and jumper hanging off her form and her bare legs clenched together to deny access to her nether regions. Before his hand could get anywhere near her, however, a trainer–wearing foot crashed down on it hard, making the man cry out in pain even more._

" _NO, PLEASE!"_

 _A loud crack rang out in the night, and the girl screamed and broke down in tears and howls of fright as a little blood splattered on her legs and the sound hurt her ears, masking a dull thud of something hitting the ground. Slowly opening her eyes and daring a little peek, she saw the blank eyes of her attacker staring into her own, his jaw slack as a pool of blood slowly spread from under his head, and a little trickled out of the hole in his left temple. The girl looked up at the short man who had saved her, and his glowing, yellow eyes seemed to pierce her soul. She was enthralled and unable to look away, until finally he did and turned his head back and slowly, surely, and confidently walk out of the alley._

 _She very slowly stood up on wobbly legs, almost tripping several times as she did. Her left hand held together what was left of her blouse and jumper, and her right hand went to her crotch to cover herself. Her skirt was lying next to the body, soaked in his blood and her urine. She left it there, and fumbled and stumbled her way out of the alley, only to find a small, black bag laying on top of a rubbish bin. Opening it, she found new clothes and a bundle of pound notes, as well as a form with the stamp of the London Police on it. She could barely stand, but no longer from pain and fright; her saviour was a true guardian angel._


	2. Chapter 2

**A Boy & An Old Man**

 _ **August 21st, 1993**_

 _ **The Leaky Cauldron, London**_

An old man stood on the sidewalk of a side-street in inner London, not far from the Waterloo Bridge crossing the Thames. The man looked quite silly, standing there in his colourful nightgown, half-moon spectacles resting on his slightly crooked nose. But he carried himself with dignity; his back was straight, his hands latched together behind his back, and his gaze, sharp as the eyes of a hawk, roamed the street slowly. There were a couple of people on the street – just five – who didn't spare him so much as a glance… in fact, it almost seemed as though their eyes, wandering much of the street, simply failed to land on him for even a moment.

Albus Dumbledore – headmaster of Hogwarts and Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot – stood patiently and waited, lightly leaning forwards and backwards on his feet, and began humming a little tune he had heard earlier that morning when he had ridden the tube into central London. There was something about the tube and walking through the streets of Muggle London that put his mind at ease and cleared it. He hadn't spared the meeting with Hogwarts' board of directors later a single thought, and the fresh autumn air with a hint of industrialisation in the form of automotive vehicles absolutely contributed to that in his opinion.

His patience did eventually pay off, as it had a tendency to do.

Around a corner just a short walk away came a short figure… well, short for a full-grown man, but the figure wasn't a grown man. It was a boy, who had developed quite quickly. Easily standing at 1.60, Albus noticed the faint hint of a developing beard on the boy's chin and jaw, just enough to reflect a little light. His black hair was neat, with short sides and back, but a bit longer in front which Dumbledore noticed was just enough to cover the irritated scar when the boy stood still.

But the boy's eyes caught Albus off-guard. They were as green as the boy's mother's eyes, but held none of the ethereal warmth Lily had let shine through them to ease those looking at her. Lily had been a woman who radiated her kindness and generosity, and one could rarely become angrier than somewhat irritated in her presence. Seeing her eyes devoid of heat, devoid of _life_ … Albus had hoped he would never see it again after he had seen the deceased Potters. And here it was… in their still-living son's eyes.

Yes, the eyes were _cold_. Not necessarily unkind or angry, spiteful, but simply lacking any emotion altogether. Even the light probes Albus pushed through his own eyes into the boy's yielded nothing but an icy wall, but there was no backlash. The boy's eyes simply stared into his own, and while he felt no attempt at his mind, he knew without the shadow of a doubt that Harry Potter had just read Albus' mind through no magical means.

The boy **knew** exactly what Albus was.

"Professor Dumbledore," Harry said, his voice as devoid of emotion as his eyes.

"Harry," Dumbledore returned in kind.

"Shall we?" the boy gestured to the door of The Leaky Cauldron.

"After you, my boy. We are going out the back."

Harry simply nodded and grasped the doorknob. Looking at his right hand, Albus could clearly see a black shape on the back of it. A tattoo, as he recalled it was called. It was a _vegvisir_ , a runic compass with which Albus was only vaguely familiar. The headmaster followed Harry inside the pub, and realised upon entry that in the few blinks of an eye that Harry had been out of his sight, the boy had put on black-lensed glasses and a hat with a shadow out in front.

 _A disguise. But why?_

Albus was getting concerned. Harry had vanished from the cottage in Godric's Hollow. Everyone had assumed that he was dead, that he was nothing but dust in the wind, but Albus had held desperate hopes that it wasn't true. Using contacts he had and ones he didn't, Dumbledore had spent every available moment checking orphanages all over Britain, and had even gone so far as to recruit a member of government to keep an eye out for a baby boy suddenly entering the systems the British government used to keep track of inhabitants.

Only two months ago had his hopes been answered; as an owl had arrived at his office carrying a note from someone claiming to be Harry Potter, Albus could have jumped out of his skin.

Everything so far indicated that _someone_ had gone to great lengths to hide his existence from _everyone_. He still needed to figure out _who_ , and _why_.

The two of them arrived in the small enclosure behind the establishment, with Harry leaning against the wall when Dumbledore came out after him. Though his posture seemed relaxed, his face and eyes never shifted from the utter absence of anything. A little stabbing pain in his heart brought to Albus' attention that someone had to go through hell to arrive at such a perfect lack of emotion.

Dumbledore wordlessly pulled out his wand, something that didn't seem to surprise Harry in the slightest. He then tapped the bricks in the right order and the wall started folding in on itself. Harry quickly pushed off the wall as it folded in behind him, a single twitch of his eye the only sign of surprise he revealed.

"Welcome to Diagon Alley," Albus said, but couldn't quite muster a smile. "A place you will become well-acquainted with as you step into our world."

"I suppose," Harry said as his eyes roamed the street, but he strangely didn't shrug as one normally did with such a blasé statement. It seemed the very reflex of body language to accompany his words had been forgotten.

"It would be difficult if you didn't," Albus said. "This is where you will purchase your school supplies every summer before the school year starts."

"Hmm."

Harry then started walking at a leisurely pace down the street with Dumbledore beside him. As they walked, Harry's eyes – visible to Dumbledore only at the angle of walking right beside him – flittered from shop to shop and person to person. As they walked, Harry's attention seemed to be drawn to Professor Quirrell who was walking towards them from Gringotts.

"That is Professor Quirrell," Dumbledore said as the former professor nodded with a shy smile at them as he passed. "He used to work at Hogwarts, but has had to resign due to an unfortunate illness. I hope to bring him back when he gets well."

Harry's eyes seemed glued to the man as he passed, and his head turned, the boy's neck muscles visibly tensing and the hairs seeming to raise and stand, quite literally. He was so caught-up staring after the man that he didn't notice the group of red-haired people coming up on them. In a moment of what Albus could only describe as lack of mindfulness, Harry accidentally took a step to the left, and bumped into one of the many Weasleys walking past them.

The young girl dropped her belongings, which consisted of a banged-up kettle filled with a few half-torn books. Harry immediately mumbled a quiet 'sorry' and knelt down, picking everything quite… quickly. It took just about two seconds, something Dumbledore found quite astonishing. The boy quickly stood up and handed the kettle to the girl who was blushing, but also seemed a little angry. One of the boys, Ronald Weasley who was going into his third year at Hogwarts the coming term, seemed much more upset, however.

"What's your deal, man!?"

"I said 'I'm sorry'," Harry deflected and turned to walk away.

"The young man was merely caught in the middle of a thought," Dumbledore said to the youngest Weasley boy. "Please, excuse us."

Ronald stared at Dumbledore, clearly having only noticed the man now.

"Oh, I'm sorry Professor Dumbledore," Ronal muttered flustered.

"Please, have a pleasant day, Weasleys."

"We will, Professor," said the matriarch, Molly, with a slightly mollified expression and a bright smile. "Come on children, let's go."

The lot of them went on as Harry stood and stared after them.

"For being pure-blooded, they sure don't have much money leftover," Harry commented.

"They lost much of their fortune a century or two ago," Albus explained. "Since then, they haven't been doing much to regain it. They're comfortable as they are, and don't need money to feel good about themselves, unlike many other pure-blooded families." He turned and looked at the boy. "Do you know much about our society?"

"A fair bit," Harry shrugged. "Enough to get by."

The two of them looked after the Weasleys for a little, before they turned around.

"Do you have money on you?" Dumbledore questioned the boy.

"A galleon, some sickles, a few knuts. Not enough to get everything on the list, though."

"Good thing that I brought one of your belongings, then," Dumbledore said and flicked his hand, at which point a small, golden key appeared between his fingers. "The key to your vault in Gringotts. I presume you have always exchanged pounds?"

Harry nodded and accepted the key.

"Didn't know my parents had a vault worth access to. What's in it?"

"We'll see. I've never set foot in it."

Harry nodded and started towards Gringotts.

The boy intrigued Dumbledore more and more with every passing moment. It seemed to Dumbledore that he had worried quite a bit over… hopefully not much. The way Harry _talked_ , the way he _carried_ himself… all of it betrayed his face and eyes to an extent. Dumbledore had first assumed his cold eyes which seemed to cut deep into his soul were just a part of his outward façade. Dumbledore had taken it to mean lack of empathy and care, but it seemed instead that he simply didn't emote much, for he was polite enough and didn't seem to hold any particular ill will, despite his demeanour. Maybe, he was just out-of-touch. Maybe he had been raised without anyone to smile at. The questions kept piling up in Dumbledore's head, but they would have to wait. They were approaching Gringotts.

As they entered the great marble building, they walked up to the counter right at the end of the large hall. A goblin looked down at them as they approached, and suspicion radiated off him as he peered at Harry. Harry seemed to catch on, and took off his dark glasses and hat, letting the goblin see who was underneath. To Dumbledore's surprise, the goblin smirked at the sight of him.

"Ah, Mr Evans. Good to see you again." The goblin smiled, showing an abundance of sharp, wicked-looking teeth. "Shall I call Calebarsh for you?"

"No, thank you Grimlock," Harry said, his lips only slightly curving into a smirk. "I would like to see Griphook."

"Ahh," the goblin uttered with a satisfied look at Dumbledore. "You have been informed of your rightful vault."

"I have," Harry nodded and leant closer. "If you knew from the beginning, I would have appreciated that you let it on."

"But where's the fun in that, young mister?" Grimlock chuckled ominously.

To Dumbledore's surprise, Harry actually chuckled, just three chuckles.

"I suppose you have a point." He then placed the key on the counter. "My vault, please."

"Of course, Mr _Potter_ ," the goblin whispered and snapped his fingers.

The little goblin Dumbledore presumed was Griphook came walking from a door off to the side.

"Mr Potter," the goblin said with a small nod and took the key offered by Grimlock. "Mr Dumbledore. If you'll follow me, please."

Harry didn't waste any time following after the goblin, and Dumbledore simply followed silently. It appeared the boy knew quite a bit more than he let on. Whatever reason he had for keeping secrets and being vague, Dumbledore could only wish he knew. For now, he had to keep an eye on the boy and learn whatever he could.

•••

The boy had exhibited mild surprise at the sight of his parents' vault filled with gold, silver and bronze, and had then scooped up a handful of each coinage. Loaded up with money, the two of them left Gringotts with few words spoken between them. When they reached the outside, Dumbledore pulled out a pocket watch and looked at the time.

"I should be going soon," he said to Harry and replaced his watch. As his hand entered his robes, be pulled out an envelope and held it out. "This contains your ticket for the Hogwarts Express going from Platform 9 ¾ from Kings Cross. The train leaves around noon, so I would be sure to be on good time if I were you." Dumbledore did muster a smile at the end. "I will see you at Hogwarts September first, then."

Harry nodded.

"Good day, Harry."

"Good day Professor Dumbledore."

With a 'crack', the old wizard vanished from sight, leaving Harry by himself. He opened the envelope and checked the ticket before replacing it and then stuffing the envelope in his jacket's inner pocket. With a few looks around, the then picked a direction at random and started walking with his hands in his pockets, the cap returned to his head but his shades hanging off his Henley's collar.

•••

"… and he has been presumed dead for the past twelve years," Harry caught the end of the sentence as he entered the bookshop.

Looking around, his eye caught a girl about thirteen years old with bushy, brown hair talking in unbroken streams at her parents. She was loading a few books onto the counter, counting coins in her hand, and talking… all at the same time.

"There've been articles in the Daily Prophet about him in the past few weeks. They say rumours are going around that he's been sighted here in Diagon Alley from time to time, and a piece even claimed that he had written Professor Dumbledore directly and announced his enrolment into the school! I've never hoped more that the papers are right! He would be so fascinating if even half the theories about him are true!"

"You talking about Harry Potter?" Harry asked as he walked past with a book in his hands. "You really think he's coming to Hogwarts?"

The girl whipped around and looked at him with a hint of joy in her eyes.

"I actually do!" she exclaimed. "I mean, if he can disappear without a trace for twelve years and suddenly pop up out of nowhere, he must have been taken in by a powerful witch or wizard! Think of all the things he might know, the knowledge he could share!"

Harry gazed into her eyes for a few seconds, and then smirked.

"I doubt you'd get much out of him, if that were the case."

That small comment put some redness and a slight scowl onto her face.

"Why wouldn't he?"

"If he hasn't been seen for twelve years, and then suddenly comes out of _hiding_ , don't you think he would hold his cards close to his chest? You know, _keep_ his secrets?"

She looked a little defeated at that, but then grumbled something under her breath.

"Everyone should have the right to know."

Harry couldn't contain his faint smirk and quiet 'hmm'.

"But then there wouldn't be such a thing as secrets."

He then walked past her to some shelves in the back, looking up the titles of the books he would need for the school year ahead. He had a bit of shopping to do.


	3. Chapter 3

**An Unsurprising Surprise**

 _ **September 1st, 1993**_

 _ **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland**_

The evening sky was dark and the breeze chilly, but the black-haired boy sat unfazed in the rather drafty carriage, his plain black robes keeping out the worst of the chill. His emerald eyes stared at the huge castle, a majestic and mysterious structure against the backdrop of the midnight-black heavens. A faint humming trembled through his body the closer they got. The ancient forces of supernature vibrated throughout the air and earth, and penetrated his very being. It was nowhere as concentrated as the sensation in his subterranean home beneath London, but it was far deeper and greater. The countless students and teachers walking the halls had contributed to the ambient energies for a thousand years, creating a vastly potent wellspring of power. A more powerful site Harry had never visited, and he was enthralled with the sensation of it. The love, joy and happiness of the people who called the castle their home, past and present, added up to make Harry feel like he was being swaddled in his baby blanket and placed in his ever-familiar crib, and the humming in the air resounded in his heart like his mother's voice singing him a lullaby.

A small tear escaped his left eye as he closed his eyes and a genuine smile of contentment crept onto his lips, relishing in the feeling the place brought him. He wondered if any of the other students even had the senses to feel the slightest bit of what he felt. Such energies required special attunement to be perceptible to the human mind; a sense many possessed, but few understood and could rely on. But all of Harry's senses were keen, and that one especially.

He wiped the tear away as the carriage – drawn by emaciated, skeletal horses with leathery hide and bat-like wings – came to a halt. He opened the door and hopped out gracefully. He lightly caressed the horse as he passed it, and it nudged his hand with its snout as his hand passed by its neck and head. He then stuffed his hands in the pockets of his black trousers and headed up the steps towards the front door, a massive oak slab easily standing at four or five times his own height. He slipped inside and off to the side, finding a comfortable place well-cloaked in shadows where he practically melded into the darkness, and the only thing visible were his knees down and his eyes, which almost seemed to very slightly glow in the darkness.

He stayed there for another ten minutes as his eyes, eerily peering from the darkness, flittered across the various students as they passed. His eyes received many funny looks, as well as some concerned ones. Eventually, no more students passed through the entrance, and about fifteen or twenty children were left outside the dining hall inside. An older woman then came out from a door a little away, and walked over to the group of coming first-years. Her eyes wandered the flock, and she stretched a little looking for someone in the back. She didn't find who she was looking for, and Harry could only conclude that it was him.

He stepped out of the shadow right next to her, and she almost jumped when he seemed to materialise right beside her.

"Ah, you scared me!" she exclaimed. "Please refrain from doing that again, Mr Potter."

A veritable shockwave of whispers rippled throughout the first-years at the mention of his name. Harry couldn't stop the slight grin.

"Sorry, Professor."

"Anyway," she collected herself and her wits and then turned to the other students. "In a moment, you will come face to face with the rest of the school, and–"

•••

Harry walked as the last of the flock of new students as they all walked into great hall. Mumbling and whispering broke out at the sight of him, and a few moments of scrutiny allowed Harry to locate the girl he had seen in the book shop of Diagon Alley, her eyes wide and face completely red as his eyes met hers. He walked behind the eleven-year-olds until they all came to a stop as they reached the front of the hall.

"The sorting will now begin," McGonagall called out. "Due to unforeseen circumstances, we will begin with the transfer student. Potter, Harry!"

The little black sea parted in front of Harry, and he confidently strode through them and up to the stool where McGonagall held a ragged old hat. He sat down on the stool and allowed the hat to be placed upon his head.

 _ **Ah, I see. Mr Potter. I expected you years ago.**_

 _I was busy. Preoccupied. But I'm here now._

 _ **Indeed you are. Now, let's see. Hmm. Interesting… Curious. Most curious. Fascinating… Well, would you look at that. I can place you any number of places. Where do you think you should go?**_

 _You know the answer to that._

 _ **Very well, then. I place you in–**_

"Gryffindor!" the hat called out, and a standing ovation and loud cheers erupted from the table of red and gold.

Harry stood up from the stool and slowly walked down the table, looking for an empty – and, more importantly, secluded – spot. Available seats were aplenty with everyone shuffling and shifting to give him space, and Harry found it quite comical to watch. He eventually made it to the end of the table, where there were a few metres of empty space. He sat down at the very end of the table, much to the chagrin of the rest of the table, if the whispering was anything to go by.

"Does he think he's better than the rest of us!?"

"Aren't we good enough for him!?"

It seemed he had infuriated a lot of his housemates with a single action. He didn't react to any of it and sat patiently and waited for the food to appear as he knew it eventually would.

•••

Harry enjoyed a light dinner of stew before he headed up along with the other first-years, getting the route to the common room memorised. When he made it up to the third-year boy's dorm, he was greeted with hostility.

"Well, look who it is," one of them remarked. "The Boy Who Lived. Too rich and famous to sit with the lower classes?"

It was a dark-haired boy with a strong Irish accent. A brief glance down at his trunk revealed all Harry needed to know.

"No, Finnegan," Harry remarked as he untied his tie. "Too tired to sit with nosey brats who have no respect for personal space."

"What'd you say!?" the boy yelled and stepped right up to Harry, standing less than two inches away. If he were so inclined, Harry could lean in and kiss him without problem.

"You're only proving my point," Harry said and lightly pushed the other boy away. "Now please be quiet. I want to get some sleep."

"Don't you bloody push me, mate!"

Harry turned and sent one glance at the boy, his eyes piercing the Irish boy's very soul and freezing him in place.

" **Go to bed** ," Harry said, his voice sounding eerily commanding and almost resounding twice as his eyes bored into Finnegan's.

Suddenly, Finnegan's eyes started drooping, and he let out an angry huff as he flailed his arm a little, as if to say 'fine, sod off'. He then laid down in his bed and said no more. Everyone stared wide-eyed at Harry, and then jumped as Finnegan suddenly snored loudly. Harry returned to undressing and put on his pyjamas before he too climbed into bed.

No one dared say a thing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Black Humour**

 _ **The Next Morning**_

Harry's first few days went rather well. After having utterly dominated Finnegan and sent him to bed without so much as the slightest bit of resistance, none of the boys dared mess with him. Finnegan was livid, utterly outraged, but he had experienced first-hand the compelling tone of Harry's words. He wouldn't stop complaining about how weak he felt when Harry had told him to get to bed when he thought Harry wasn't listening. After the first two rants or so, Harry had _stopped_ listening.

It wasn't long before rumours started spreading, though. A male veela, some students thought. That was, until someone had had the presence of mind to inform them that Harry's parents were both completely human; James Potter was almost as pure-blooded as they came, and Lily Evans was muggleborn. Another theory was that he was _so_ pure-blooded that he had the innate ability to command witches and wizards with a single look, but then someone had to bring up Lily Evans' blood status again.

Hogwarts, within a day of Harry's arrival, was swarming with rumours about him. 'I heard he trained with goblins'. 'I heard he was raised by werewolves'. 'Someone told me he was a vampire'. Interesting theories, he would give them that. Also far closer to the truth than some of the other ones. 'He's the reincarnation of Merlin, resurrected as the bloodlines of Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor converge in him from his parents, granting him nigh-unlimited magical power and infinite wisdom'.

Harry had to admit, he wouldn't mind a peek inside the head of whoever came up with that one. He didn't dare imagine what kind of fairy dust crap he might find in there. Probably that glossy-eyed blond girl from Ravenclaw who had walked up to him and handed him a 'friendship bracelet' made with an actual radish. The way her dreamy smile screamed of naivety and innocence, he hadn't the heart to not accept it. Right now, it was tucked under his shirt's cuff and hidden by his cloak. He'd have to stash it in his trunk next he came up to the common room.

Classes were different, though.

•••

"It's alright, Mr Potter," the short-statured Charms teacher piped. "Only Ms Granger got it on the first few tries in this class."

Harry kept waving his wand and repeating the words 'Wingardium Leviosa' over and over again, and the only movement in the feather came from the way he moved his wand close to it. He occasionally looked over to his book and read the page on the particular spell a few times before he went back to trying the spell. In the end, he dropped his wand on the table and leant back in his chair as his hands rubbed at his face and went into his hair. He finally had enough, and snapped his fingers, at which point the feather shot up into the air, easily five metres up.

He then waved his finger around and watched mindlessly as the feather followed the direction his digit gave it. It soared around at high speeds, until he finally snapped his fingers again and the feather burst into flames, turning to ash in the blink of an eye. He then growled and placed his face in his hands again.

"Uh, well…" Flitwick muttered, astonished by the sight of such effortless wandless and wordless magic. "I do suppose you understand the concepts behind it. Are you having trouble with your wand, Harry?"

Harry looked at Flitwick for a few moments.

"My magic feels… sluggish, I suppose, when I try to channel it through the wand. Like… like I normally have a small river, and then have to squeeze it through a pipe. I've never had to control it so delicately before. Without it, I just let my magic flow and try to push it a little where I want it to go. Then I just take my hands off and let it run."

"That sounds like quite the phenomenon, Mr Potter," Flitwick said thoughtfully. "I must admit, I have never heard anyone have such faith in their magic before. Are you sure it's wise to trust it so much, to the point of 'taking your hands off'?"

"It hasn't let me down yet," Harry sighed and grabbed his wand again as Flitwick conjured a new feather. "When I'm angry, it vents my frustration with fire. When I'm, sad, it makes me a slide of ice. When I'm hungry, it rustles trees to knock down fruit. So yeah, I trust it with my life."

Flitwick nodded, and then turned around, a little surprised at seeing the entire class looking on with wide eyes. Most of them probably saw the display of wandless magic Harry performed. Harry couldn't care less. As far as they knew, he had just become good at controlling accidental magic, which led to wandless magic. Not one of them knew the truth. None of them knew the immaculate drawing he had to manifest in his mind as he performed each and every spell. The drawings and diagrams he had to remember and mentally reconstruct.

Harry sighed and slumped over his desk, and remembering the feeling of his power surging through him and the image of the feather flying through the air, he waved his wand with a half-assed 'wingardium leviosa'. To his surprise, the feather slowly – ever so slowly – lifted off the table, trembling a little when his focus wavered. He steeled himself, and carefully lifted his wand. He was pleased to see the feather rising in accordance with his wand, and then he gave a slight wave, disconnecting the feather from his magic: It slowly glided downwards and landed in front of him.

"Finally," he muttered and leant back in his chair, slumping down.

The mental stress the hour of the class or so got to him, and he couldn't help the yawn.

"Excellent Mr Potter, excellent!" Professor Flitwick applauded enthusiastically. "Now, keep doing it until you have it mastered."

Harry was thankful for his mental discipline, for without it he could not have kept the scream of frustration and utter despair within his mind.

•••

Herbology was decent enough in Harry's opinion. He knew plants. Except, well… not these _moving_ , _thinking_ plants. Harry swore they had minds. One of them tried snapping out at him, and when he looked, it was still. When he looked away and leant over another one, he looked up and swore it had moved to follow him. He kept looking away and looking back, and it was always in a different position. It was one of the creepiest things he had experienced. When it finally struck, he caught it by the blossom that hid the mouth, making the Hufflepuff girl next to him scream and stare at him with a strange look. With help from the book of the year, he did well enough.

Not the most interesting subject.

•••

Then came Care For Magical Creatures. The teacher, Rubeus Hagrid, had brought one damned magnificent beast; a hippogriff. Griffin's top, horse's bottom, strong wings, a sharp mind and beak… Harry thought it was absolutely gorgeous. The way only a predatory bird could be beautiful. One boy, a blond Slytherin, had dared walk up to it and disrespect it to its face, and for that it had used its taloned front legs to cut his arm, and the weight of the creature had broken it. A just punishment for an unjust show of disrespect. Harry liked it.

•••

Then came Transfiguration.

How Harry hated it.

It wasn't because he didn't like the concept of turning one thing into another; his hermetic training consisted a great deal of transmutation. But using his wand was still… tricky, to say the least. He had to restrain himself from pulling out a piece of coal and some lumps of mineral from his bag, draw a transmutation circle on the desk, and achieve the desired transformation that way. He needed to get used to work with his wand, because he couldn't perform his usual Hermetic theourgia in plain view of the others.

"Maybe you should try something different, Potter," McGonagall suggested as she came by his desk in the middle of class and noticed him poking his wand incessantly at the sewing needle while muttering gibberish Latin. "Try this," she said, and then waved her wand lightly over the needle. " _Flintifors_."

Before Harry's eyes, the needle turned into a matchbox, _with_ matchsticks inside. Harry sighed as McGonagall flicked her wand, and the matchbox turned back into a needle.

" _Flintifors_ ," Harry muttered, a little sweat rolling down his forehead in concentration.

A tiny piece of the needle broke off and turned into a simple piece of wood like a matchstick, only without the phosphorous at the tip. Harry breathed out and sat back in his chair, once more exhausted with the effort it took.

"It's progress, Potter," McGonagall said sternly. "Keep working hard, and you _will_ get it right. I have faith in you. After all, your father was exemplary at Transfiguration."

"Thanks," Harry muttered and wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his cloak. His breathing was deep, and his head almost rolled around from sheer exhaustion. "This is much harder than I thought it would be."

"Nothing worthwhile is easy," Minerva said, and lightly bumped his shoulder. "Your mother used to say that. Then James would complain that it should be. Keep working."

Harry nodded and leant back forwards to resume his transfiguration work, lightly swearing under his breath as he did.

•••

The boy was utterly knackered when dinner came around, and he almost fell asleep with his head on his book at the table. The porridge and bread in front of him was long-forgotten, and his eyes kept fluttering closed before he would open them with a start. Magic had rarely been so taxing before, and he suspected that it was by way of this new medium he had to channel it through. His will imposed on the world happened through diagrams, instruments, ingredients, and time. Now, he had ditch all that in favour of a wooden stick. Most likely, his dependency on and liking for the Order's tools of the trade was blocking his Will from letting him use his wand.

He pulled said item out of his cloak and stared at it. It was eleven inches long and carved from a holly branch. The core was the tail-feather of a phoenix. He didn't understand what it was, but something about it just seemed _right_. He disliked it initially because of limiting him in how he could perform magic, but he couldn't shake the feeling that is just perfect for him… that it felt like a lost part of him that he had regained. He sighed and slid it back into the pocket he'd had the seamstress sew specifically for it in his cloaks and vests.

Under the guidance of a true Hermetic mage, Harry had come to learn and appreciate the infinitely complex and ever-shifting nuances of magic, and this stick seemed like a huge slap in the face of that long, hard training. Checking just briefly to make sure no one was watching, he pulled out a white stick and placed it on the tabletop. He quickly drew a circle with the chalk and wrote a few Hebrew letters inside it, then drew a specific sigil before he stashed the chalk back in his pocket and pulled out a small folding knife. He quickly cut his thumb without so much as a flinch and let the blood drop onto the drawing before he placed the nearly-finished bread on top. With a little, white flash, the bread was whole again, and Harry took a bite. It tasted so sweet his mouth began watering, and he used a napkin to wipe away the evidence of the working whilst he ate the transubstantiated bread.

He then finished the bread and porridge before he grabbed his things and headed up to the common room and jumped into bed, eager to fall into unconsciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

**No, Siriusly**

Weeks passed, and The Boy Who Lived grew accustomed to the ebb and flow of the archaic castle. No one ever saw him smile, not really, and none saw beyond the stoic mask he presented the world. He made slow progress in his more spellcasting-oriented classes, and people came to know that his spellcasting abilities were far from up to par with his peers in terms of age. Soon, first-years were muttering jinxes at each other in the hallways, and Harry kept trying and failing those very same jinxes. The Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Remus Lupin, was encouraging enough, but Harry saw clearly in his prematurely aged face that he was concerned for Harry's slow progress.

In secret, Harry was drawing and empowering sigils and wards around the castle, discovering ways to draw upon the energies of the building itself to sustain his magical work, and rumours were abound with invisibly blocked corridors and doors, as well as sudden flashes of light and sounds, making the little first-years flee in terror at the 'spectres'. While everyone thought he was bumbling around, unable to cast even simple spells, he was working large-scale rituals all around the castle's many rooms and creating boundaries invisible and impenetrable to all but the teachers, who had little trouble tearing them down with their wands. Every experiment, Harry recorded and studied closely. The magical energies of the castle resonated more strongly with the energies of the teachers and students, and so the foreign magic was fairly easily removed. Now, if only he could find a way to match that particular signat–

 _Ah, well fuck me, I've a wand right here._

Harry groaned internally at the thought: To be able to create stronger spells in the castle, he had to learn the magic they taught here… at which he was abysmal. Harry's power was growing rapidly in one area, and growing horrendously slowly in another, and he needed to switch those two areas around.

Leaving that thought, he returned to the present where he was sitting in the Transfiguration classroom, turning the needle into a matchstick and back again over and over, each time removing another few wood grains from the needle and removing a little metal-patch from the matchstick. At least he had a keen understanding of how to internalise incantations; he'd been doing _that_ for years. Whilst his professors marvelled – or at least most of them did – at his ability to perform magic non-verbally, they still couldn't figure out how he could do that without being capable of the most basic spells first.

Commanding the forces of the elements, of life, of the mind, and of the quintessential _prima materia_ , magical energy itself, came easily to Harry in the form of Hermetic rituals, Greek rites, and Egyptian incantations, but the raw, unrefined, and wild forces of this particular branch of magic were… difficult for him, to say the least. Even the runic arts of the ancient Norse valdaermen, he understood and could utilise well enough for a novice of the sacrificial ways, and considering how much of it relied on improvisation and oral tradition long lost to the awakened ones, it was almost a miracle he could figure it out at all. His mistress had been kind enough to bring him a teacher of the old Hermetic ways from amongst her resourceful contacts, and his father had been a great instructor in the mysteries of Odin and his kin.

Harry, however, wasn't one to give up so easily. He just needed a situation where he couldn't rely on his usual methods and had to think quickly, on his feet. Where he had to be able to act imm–

"They say Sirius Black escaped Azkaban!" came a call from somewhere in the great hall at lunch. "It's mental, no one's ever done that before!"

Harry sighed.

 _The universe must have it out for me._

He then ate more of his sandwich as he thought about that particular development. Azkaban was supposedly impossible to escape, and Harry wasn't exactly keen on testing the theory, but if someone had indeed escaped, maybe he could… Harry didn't know where that thought was going. There was nothing to really do except bury his nose in books and keep practising. Unless… no, that was a bad idea. Besides, how would he cross the wards of the castle? Well, he did have _that_ spell… No, it was too dangerous. But then again, that's what he always said, and he never had too much trouble…

 _You're not doing it_ , came the stern, yet utterly seductive and feminine voice of his mistress inside his head. His internal voice of reason. _There's no reason to do it, and there's nothing to gain from it._

Right. He had to keep his head down and just… get through this hurdle that was learning wizardry. He had a long, difficult road ahead of him, and he was not looking forward to it.

•••

"I'm telling you, something's off about Potter," Seamus Finnegan said with frustration. "He's, like, weird."

"We all see that, Seamus," Dean Thomas said in kind with a lightly exasperated look on his face. "He's just weird, okay? Leave him be, you'll be fine."

"You can't be serious!" Seamus blurted out. "He's a bloody menace! You saw what happened!"

"I saw you listen to good advice," Dean countered.

"Enough," Ron Weasley interjected. "Potter doesn't want to befriend us, that's fine. We just won't be there to help him out. Can you live with that?" he looked at Seamus.

Seamus huffed angrily.

"Fine."

"Good," Ron said and got up from his bed. "Who's up for some chess?"

Both Seamus and Dean looked between each other, and then they played a quick round of rock-paper-scissor. Dean lost.

"I will, I guess," the dark-skinned Gryffindor said.


	6. Chapter 6

**A History**

 _ **May 5th, 1987**_

 _ **Subterranean London, England**_

"Harry, focus!" Meerlinda said sternly as he was painstakingly drawing a circle with black sand. "Not one half centimetre off!"

Harry nodded very carefully, his eyes never leaving the trail of sand pouring out of the small leather pouch. Several lines of sweat streaked down his face as it was so close some sand might even fall on him. His hand was as still as a statue as it moved around in the circular manner, not the slightest hint of trembling or shaking in his arm.

"Good," she muttered as he slowly progressed through the last few centimetres. "Good."

She was a gorgeous woman indeed. Her ebony hair was thick and luscious, her piercing eyes vibrant and summer sky-blue, and her undeathly pallor creating an extreme contrast between her beautiful hair and utterly flawless skin, looking almost like a black-and-white picture of perfection. She was tall for a woman in her living days, which was now just below the average height of women. Her eyebrows were sharply defined and fairly thin, her cheekbones sharp and regal, her jaw strong in a feminine manner. It was as if she was created to be the pinnacle of British beauty. However, when one truly looked closely, some of her features seemed to… flicker or very slightly shift and distort. Such was the unfortunate lot of those Cainites – an archaic term for vampires – who achieved beauty beyond humanly possible; their very presence seemed to become artificial.

Meerlinda, his mistress, was a harsh and strict woman in training. Her dedication to the old ways of the ancient Cult of Thoth, now going by the Order of Hermes, was rivalled only by her insatiable lust for knowledge. But when he was 'off the clock', she was a caring and gentle mother-figure, though he was damned well-aware that such an attitude extended only to him. No other, mortal or otherwise, ever saw that side of her which was his alone. He loved her as the mother she was to him, and he knew full well the extent of her ruthlessness. She was by no means a violent woman; indeed, she always sought the peaceful, diplomatic solution to a problem, but that was her nature. She was a politician, a peacemaker, a negotiator. However, no life or unlife would burden her conscience, and she would slaughter anyone she was forced to without remorse. It was this mentality and shift between mentalities – such psychological compartmentalisation – that had inspired him the most.

Over a thousand years old, she was one of the original and founding members of the vampiric Tremere clan: Formerly the Hermetic House of Tremere, their life-extending potions and rituals had begun failing them in the eleventh century, and so they had to find other means of ensuring their preternaturally long lives. One of them, Goratrix, had discovered a method of distilling immortality from vampire-blood, but his ritual had been flawed; without the access to the awakened magickal arts reserved solely for the living, the newly-created vampires had to discover a way to reclaim at least some of their magics. The result had been a branch of blood magic called Thaumaturgy, based on the principles of their old Hermetic arts.

Harry, however much of her blood he had drunk over the years, was no vampire; he could not learn the dark and noble art of Thaumaturgy as he could the lesser, more ingrained powers of the vampire's blood. Instead, using the immensely vast knowledge of the old Hermetic _ars magickae_ in her possession, she had begun instructing him on the basics of the limited arts she had known in life, though the basics had been lost to her over the thousand years of her unliving immortality. She had found a teacher for him in the form of one of the last remaining practitioners of the old _modus_ , the Hermetic methods from her own living days. Nowadays, it seemed, new magickal theorem had become accepted, but neither she nor the old hermetic understood it, and so they stuck with the practises they knew.

Meerlinda had taken over once Harry became advanced enough to take advantage of her highly masterful and specialised knowledge, and the hermetic wizard had unfortunately been introduced to the bed of the Thames: No one could be allowed to learn of Harry's existence until the proper moment arrived.

His adopted father, on the other hand, _did_ have working knowledge of ancient forms of magick. In truth, he might even be older than Meerlinda; he never told Harry, and he rarely answered any questions about his early life. Harry only knew that he was born in the Middle-East; his Saracen features – and they were indeed _Saracen_ , not merely Semitic – placed him at the latest in the twelfth or eleventh century Syria or so, but he was still human. He had taught Harry much _theory_ about many kinds of magick, and had taught Harry what signs to look for in magickal workings to discover what practise they hailed from. The only practical teaching he had bestowed on Harry was the rune magick of a sect of grim, Norse runewizards, called valdaermen. By cutting himself or allowing others to cut him, Harry had discovered the power of sacrifice in performing magick, and he had somehow managed to combine very small aspects of each practise into his own unique style of magick reliant upon both the old Egyptian, Hebrew, and Greek magick of the Order, as well as the grim, dark, and cold acts of sacrifice to Odin of the Norse.

"Good," she said as he completed the perfect circle, not a single flaw in it. "Now gather the sand and do it again."

"Yes, mistress," Harry sighed lightly.

"Chin up, boy," she said, her voice softening a little. "Only one hour until you can get busy with the climbing rockwall."

Harry perked up and began gathering the sand with renewed energy. He then began the painstaking process of drawing an utterly perfect circle with sand, something he had already spent three months working on.

•••

"One, two, three, JUMP!" Meerlinda shouted from six metres below, and Harry swung the full weight of his little body to the side, let go of his grip, and caught the small outcropping of the huge wall made of stone. "GOOD! Now, gather your energy and prepare for the next jump!"

Harry nodded wearily, his heavy breathing apparent as he clinched his foot on a foothold and squeezed his knee into a crevice, creating a temporary resting position. He leant back and looked up at where he was jumping to as he dusted his hands with more chalk powder from the pouch hanging off his climbing belt. He took a moment to catch his breath and let himself relax.

"When do you harvest a hanged man's finger?" came the question from below. Meerlinda was pop-quizzing.

"The witching hour, from half-past eleven in your time zone to half-past twelve."

"And what finger do you take?"

"The forefinger or middle finger, both work equally well."

"Good. You ready?"

Harry nodded again as the sweat poured down his face and arms, soaking his shirt.

"Then jump."

Harry relinquished his pause-hold, and then began building up to the jump.

"Three, two, one," he whispered to himself, "JUMP!"

He leapt easily one whole metre in that single jump, and he was so surprised at it that he failed to catch the grip. As he began plummeting towards the ground, however, he managed to catch another hold and slammed into the side of the wall, making him wince a little at the soreness of his shoulder and chest.

"What went wrong?" Meerlinda called up to him, seemingly unconcerned.

"I don't know," Harry called as he painstakingly pulled himself up into proper climbing position. "I over-leapt my mark. I underestimated my strength."

"That means you're making more progress than you take notice of. Come down… one drop."

Harry sighed, looked behind him, and then lightly pushed off the wall as he released his grip. Six metres of air rushed past him, and he prepared for the impact of his feet. When he made contact, he quickly pushed down with his hands, and surprisingly, his legs were fine. He stood up and looked down at them, stretching and rolling his knees and ankles.

"I barely felt that," he said in surprise. "Wow."

"Your body is assimilating my blood even further," Meerlinda said as she pulled him into her side by his shoulders. "Only a year or two until we can attempt the ritual, it seems. I'm proud of you, Harry."

Harry let out a slight chuckle as he pressed his face into her ribs and the side of her bosom, his breathing still laboured as his heart hammered away. As he did so, he began unbuckling the wrist and ankle weights he was wearing, and he finally pulled the weight vest over his head.

When he was done, he was his own full bodyweight lighter.

"Time for practical experience."

Harry took a few deep breaths before he nodded. His day was almost over. Just another three hours of investigative experience.

•••

"Tell me a story."

Harry knelt down beside the corpse.

"Male, mid-thirties," he looked at the apparel, "some kind of accountant or other office-worker by the barely worn shoes and the short-sleeved shirt. Been dead for about six hours by the smell and the slight bloat in his gut."

"True."

He put on his thin latex gloves and began looking around in the victim's pockets. He found a pen, a wallet, and a phone, a new small Nokia.

"Well-paying or otherwise important position," he said as he opened the wallet and looked inside. "Nigel Horchester, born '61, driver's license issued five years ago." He placed the things back in the pockets where he found them; the police would likely find the body in a few hours. "Mild-mannered, but with pent up anger," Harry gestured at the callouses on the wrist beneath the man's watch. "He rustled and turned his watch when he got upset."

"What's the most important thing about him?"

Harry looked up at her questioningly, and then back at the corpse. All-in-all, it didn't seem important at all. He couldn't see anything tha– Harry closed his eyes and placed his hand on the deceased's chest. He slowly painted a glowing Eye of Ra in his mind's eye, and when he opened them, he saw dark purple and sickly red veins of energy swirling about the body.

"He's been dead for days," he muttered, and then looked at his mistress with confusion written in his brow. "He's been necromantically reanimated."

"Spot-on," Meerlinda nodded. "Can you tell what the source of the reanimation spell was?"

"No," Harry shook his head lightly. "Not yet, at least."

"A Kindred," Meerlinda said. "There's a graverobber in London."

"I thought the Cappadocians were wiped out ages ago?"

"They were. Their Italian bloodline, the Giovanni, took their place as a clan, and stole their necromantic disciplines as well."

Harry nodded and looked back down at the corpse. The quiet, whispering voices of death were slowly becoming audible as his sight of the energies of extinguished life became more vibrant. He couldn't make out anything from the voices, his mystical senses still not enough to hear the spectres' pleas and questions for the living. He then closed his eyes and focused on a series of elder runes.

" _ **Perthro**_ ," he whispered, his voice taking on a deep, cold, hollow quality. It almost sounded like a song, " _ **eihwaz, elhaz. Perthro, eihwaz, elhaz. Perthro, eihwaz, elhaz. Perthro, eihwaz, elhaz. Perthro, eihwaz, elhaz.**_ "

Suddenly, the corpse very slowly sat up, supported by trembling arms.

"Who killed you?" Harry asked it.

The corpse remained silent, a few ragged gasps escaping its cold lips.

"Who raised you?"

The corpse still said nothing.

"Damn, last question," Harry muttered. "Okay, uhh… where were you killed?"

"Borgin and Burkes," came the raspy, sputtering voice of the corpse, before it fell back and became lifeless once again.

"Well, that did us a fat load of good," Harry said and stood up.

"Yes, it did," Meerlinda said with a half-smirk. "How many songs do you know?"

"Five with this one," Harry said. He did sound a little put-off by that.

"That only leaves thirteen to go until you have the Canonical Eighteen. That's still impressive. Anyway, 'Borgin and Burkes' is a shop in Knockturn Alley."

Harry's eyes widened.

"You mean that shady street in Diagon Alley? With all the dark arts peddlers?"

"Indeed," Meerlinda nodded, crossing her arms beneath her bust. "It would seem I'm not the only Kindred with a foothold in the wizarding community in London."

"You worried?"

"No," Meerlinda stated plainly. "Whoever it is must be a fearsome elder to challenge me, and the Giovanni aren't even old enough as a clan to be able to rival an elder Tremere. I _am_ concerned, though. You'll be going to Diagon Alley soon to start learning about your own culture, and a nigrimancer capable of this level of magic _will_ be a fearsome foe to _you_. You mustn't lower your guard."

"I understand, mistress," Harry agreed with a nod.

"Good. Now, let's go home. The chantry's enchantments will wear off if you don't get back soon, and you need the extra time."

"Yes, mistress."


	7. Chapter 7

**A Touch of Fear**

 _ **October 4th, 1993**_

The first of winter's chill had settled over Scotland, and Hogwarts was no exception. The biting wind lightly stung Harry's red cheeks as he walked across the huge lawn around the castle. He wore dark, thick clothes of a simple variety and almost medieval fashion underneath his hooded black cloak, which had silvery white fur lining the inside and the trim of the cloak and hood. It was held together by silver clasps from the base of his neck and down to his chest, and the cloak billowed in the wind as he walked towards the lake.

He had heard someone refer to it as 'The Black Lake', and had heard someone else mention a giant squid of some sort, but he dismissed that as a mere rumour. There was no way there would be a giant squid in a loch in Scotland. He slowly took a walk around the lake, thinking to himself about what had happened the past few weeks. It had been much duller than he had expected, but that was fine. People had been more interested in him than he had expected, but he hadn't expected how everyone tried to learn more about him from afar; they were children, he had expected them to be very invasive of his privacy. Then again, his first few days had been like he'd expected, and when it had, he had instantly shut most people down with a stare and a few empowered words.

The vampire blood rushing through his veins and permeating his body was infinitely useful to him, and the wild instincts of his more _feral_ side were great in protecting his life. More than once had his enhanced instincts and primal mind alerted him to dangers he otherwise couldn't perceive with his mundane senses. The ability to project certain emotions outside his mind and force his will upon others with mere words and eye contact were fearsome powers indeed when faced with mortals: No matter his proficiency and strength with these powers, he could not control the undead mind of a vampire, and his emotional manipulation was lacklustre.

His strength, speed, reflexes, agility, endurance, and durability were all heightened, just like his senses of sight, smell, hearing and touch. His eyes saw beyond mere sight, the sight of others could be fooled to ignore him, and his voice spoke to more than just humans; the lesser beings of the forest obeyed his command, and even greater ones heeded his call.

The power at the disposal of a vampire was immense when compared to a mortal, and Harry possessed great skill in the Cainite disciplines of the Blood. But he was still a mere mortal in various regards. His heart did still beat, and he would surely die without breath. He could indeed be poisoned, a great fall would surely break him, and a dagger in his heart… he'd rather not test out just how far his resistance to injury had become, but he had a sneaking suspicion it would come down to a coin-toss and external circumstance whether or not he could survive that particular kind of wound.

He lifted his hands up to his mouth and expelled deep breaths into them in order to warm up his hands, but he surprisingly found his breath fogging in the air. It was cold, yes, but it wasn't _that_ cold. Not to the extent that his breath couldn't carry warmth even a mere inch. He began rubbing his arms and looked around; the air had shifted while he was deep in his thoughts, and he was a few minutes' walk from the main entrance to the castle, but still close to the lake. Which had… frozen?

Harry leant over to get a better view, his brow creasing in suspicion as he confirmed that the utmost edges of the lake were indeed freezing, and incredibly quickly as well. Easily an inch every second did the water freeze from the edge, and Harry was damned well aware that it couldn't freeze that quickly in this temperature. He looked around for the source of the cold, but found only that the grey sky was darkening quite rapidly. It started to very lightly snow, and Harry caught a little in his hands, staring at it; it was real snow.

Suddenly, Harry heard something. A kind of ringing noise. He looked around once more, but the noise was so faint that it sounded like it was coming from inside his head, like tinnitus. The ringing grew in strength, and as it did, he heard other things as well. Screaming. He still couldn't pinpoint a direction, though, which confused him most of all. The ringing was growing loud enough to become a headache, and the screaming, a girl's scream, resounded in his head. Harry groaned and began heading back towards the castle, but he noticed the edges of his peripheral slowly darkening. He looked up, and in front of him was a tall man clad in dark robes that… were _floating_? The way the man's cloak moved, it looked like he was underwater. He also noticed the rather thick fog covering up the man's legs, and Harry looked up into the face of the three-metre-tall man… to find a grotesque sight.

A black hood covered some of the _face_ , but Harry still saw grey, purple, and black skin, slick with some kind of mucus-like substance, and very clearly rotting. Where the mouth should have been was a pitch-black hole that seemed to absorb light, and a gurgling, rasping breathing-like _noise_ escaped the hole. Harry's heart instantly kicked into overdrive, pumping blood throughout his entire body at record-speed, and Harry instantly lost all feeling of cold in his extremities. It was replaced with a mind-numbing cold throughout his chest and head, however, and the screaming intensified tenfold. Harry was frozen in place by an emotion he had long-since abandoned, and the 'mouth-hole' of the thing seemed to begin leaking blood and a slick, off-white fluid, and Harry had to scream as the entire scene was replaced with a mental image that had haunted his nightmares for years before he could move past it, and he lost all touch with reality as his body crumpled and he fell back into the well-known depths of unconsciousness.

The last thing he heard before true unconsciousness, however, was the broken, raspy, and pained whisper of a young girl.

" _ **I thought you'd save me**_."

•••

"– and you… be fi… UO, FU…," Harry heard snippets of voices as the oppressing weight on his mind, like a chain-blanket, was pulled away. "–sn't supp… be out. Thi… lt, Dumbl…" but he slipped back in for just a few moments. When he emerged again, his hearing, previously as though underwater, had cleared up and the ringing had left his head.

"Your vile, filthy monsters attacked a student, Minister!" Harry heard the voice of Minerva exclaim loudly.

"I told you to keep your students away from them, Dumbledore!" came the counter-argument of a voice Harry couldn't recognise. "You were explicitly informed that they would be coming!"

"You informed me of this only as they were already invading the grounds, Minister," came the calm voice of Albus Dumbledore. "I would hardly call that fair warning."

"That isn't my concern," the foreign man's voice said.

"Bullshit," Harry rasped out as he tried opening his eyes and roll over in the surprisingly soft bed.

"Potter!" he heard McGonagall's feet rapidly come closer, and soon a hand was on his forehead and a hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright!?" She was very concerned about him, from what he could hear.

"I've been worse," he said groggily and struggled to open his eyes. "Did someone glue my eyes together? I can't open them." A drawn-out and loud sigh escaped his lips and into the pillow. "So tired," he muttered. "Whazzit?"

"Excuse me?" she asked.

Harry ran his tongue around his mouth in an attempt to moisten it to speak properly, as it was dry as sandpaper. Suddenly, a glass was at his lips, and he took a few small sips and spread the water around his mouth.

"What… was… it?" he asked while he tried to lift his body, any part of it. All his limbs rebelled, and his neck felt like he had a helmet of about a hundred kilograms on. A single eye was slowly peeling open, brightening the darkness he was immersed in.

"A dementor," came the hoarse voice of Remus Lupin, apparently also in the room. "It's one of the foulest kinds of things that exist in this world."

"I wouldn't exactly sa–" came an attempt at interjection from the voice Harry didn't know, but Remus continued.

"They're a kind of physical spectre or wraith, and their sole power is to drain happiness, light, and life from the world around them. Those near them experience the worst moments of their lives and rob them of their happiest memories. Eventually, men are driven to madness and death from this form of… magical depression, if you will."

"Professor, I don't thi–"

"At the very end, they perform the _Dementor's Kiss_ ; they use a mouth-to-mouth connection to pull the soul out of a human, feeding on that soul and leaving the body an empty husk, without the soul, the mind, emotions, memories… none of it. They simply are, and all they were is gone. It's a fate worse than death."

"Yeah…" Harry muttered tiredly, and finally managed to crack one eye open. "That does sound like the most pitiful kind of life imaginable."

He saw McGonagall sitting on a chair next to him, and Lupin standing at the foot of his bed. Behind him were Dumbledore and a short, portly man in a suit and holding a bowler in his hands nervously, fiddling with it.

"Who're you?" Harry muttered, his one open eye focusing on the man in the suit.

"Mr Potter, allow me to introduce myself," the man said and walked closer to the bed. "I am Cornelius Oswald Fudge. The Minister for Magic and the head of out government. I must say, it is an honour to meet you, m'boy."

He stopped talking when Harry chuckled and gave a weak half-smirk.

"You've got some nerve saying that after putting me here," Harry said, making the man slightly pale in the face. "You ordered that thing here, right?"

"Well… yes, b–"

"So it's your fault I'm in this cond– heheheh," he couldn't finish the sentence as the room began spinning around him and he began chuckling again. "Whooaahooaahooaa," he muttered as he looked around, and he felt as though he was being moved around in the bed.

"Oh dear," an elderly woman Harry recognised as the school nurse, Madam Pomfrey, said as she came walking from somewhere off to the side, or up – maybe down? "It seems the sedative potion is starting to wear off again. I must administer another immediately. Mr Fudge, Headmaster, I must ask you to take this discussion elsewhere."

Harry couldn't keep up with words anymore after that. The med stopped moving around, and instead seemed to bounce him up and down, the sensation of being airborne rushing through every fibre of his being.

"AAAAAHHH!" he screamed out with a laughter as the bed bounced him again and again. "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! WOOOOOO!"

He saw Lupin and McGonagall sitting on either side and holding him down – was he beginning to climb backwards? – as he started rolling about on the boat. Pomfrey then entered the middle of his vision, but as she leant close with the bathtub in her hands, her face shifted, and he saw the nightmare once again, the red and white mingling in the shot-glass.

" _ **Drink**_ _._ _ **He forced me to, too**_."

Harry could only scream in terror as the mouth of the image opened in a smile to reveal what **he** had done to _her_. He was desperately fighting against the hundred of hands pushing him back down and restraining his hands.

"NO! NO! IT WASN'T ME!" Harry screamed out to the girl. "I TRIED TO STOP HIM! PLEASE, DON'T!"

But the girl forced the liquid down his throat, and he could taste the coppery blood and the salty _other_ that poured out of _that hole_. The one **he** had _made_. He could only gasp, hack and gurgle as he was being drowned in the orange combination, and he fell back into the Void once again.

 **Author's Note:**

As old readers may have noticed, this story is no longer the same. I have read my story through again recently, and I felt that it had aged very poorly. I got some reviews early on that Harry was an utter self-insert powerhouse, and I have come to agree. In the beginning, he breezed through the story, and there was basically no narrative tension for a long time, nor was there really anything of interest.

Harry was, indeed, a Gary Stu.

With this remake of the original story, which will both stick to and deviate from the original in many different ways, but I am still using the themes and very basic plot of the original. With the practise I have had over the past year, I want to take another crack at this story with my updated writing, as well as my enhanced knowledge of the World of Darkness games.

Also, someone expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that I didn't elaborate on what a "Hermetic wizard" is. The purpose of this story isn't to establish things like that, though I might give some slightly more elaborative explanation in the future (who knows?). The story is labelled as a crossover, and so I will point to references:

You can check out the White Wolf Wiki to learn more about the Order of Hermes or the Valdaermen, as well as how magick works in the **Mage** game. I would, however, also like to point to a specific book. **Dark Ages: Mage**. You will find the fellowships (magical orders or organisations) on pages 38 to 70, and you can find out how their magick works on pages 105 to 135. Specifically, the Order of Hermes can be found on pages 56 to 61, their magick on pages 120 to 124, the Valdaermen on pages 68 to 73 and their magick on pages 130 to 135.

I hope old readers will enjoy this story as much as – if not more than – they did the original, and I hope new readers come to enjoy this story.


	8. Chapter 8

**All Saints' Eve**

 _ **October 31st, 1993**_

"You should get some more rest," said the nurse. "The dementor seems to have affected you deeply."

"I'm fine."

Harry finished putting his cloak back on, the same he had worn at the time of the 'incident'. His clothes had been washed and returned warm and smelling freshly of some kind of flower or herb. He couldn't tell which. He finished closing the three silver clasps and then turned to Pomfrey.

"Thank you for your care, Madam Pomfrey."

Without another word, he left the infirmary with long strides in his legs. His eyes, however, portrayed anything but 'fine'. A lost, forlorn, and haunted looked had invaded them since he had gained consciousness the previous evening, and he had been lost in thought all night, remembering what had happened to make him witness the horrific, nightmare-inducing images. Students stepped out of his way in the corridors as he made his way through the castle towards the great hall. He hadn't had solid food since he was attacked, and his stomach was growling quite a bit. It only helped that the Hallowe'en feast was beginning in half an hour, though that also meant he would have to wait for the food. He scowled at the thought, and a few younger students jumped away from him and began running.

He made an ominous image as he walked through the castle with his heavy cloak draped around him and the cold, almost seething look in his face and the fiery look of hatred in his eyes. They even seemed to glow faintly, only adding to his dangerous look. And he _was_ angry. Furious, even. That **thing** had dredged up memories he had spent a lot of time, effort, and magical energy to suppress, and now he couldn't get the image out of his head anymore. The image also kept him from focusing on his mind-magicks, which probably could do what he needed at this point in his training.

•••

Harry was the first to finish eating at the feast, and despite a call to sit back down from Snape, he stood and marched out of the hall to go back upstairs to his bed and get some sleep. Besides, Snape had already deducted points from Gryffindor because he hadn't worn his school robes. Let him deduct a hundred more. Harry really didn't care at the moment.

It took him a solid ten minutes to get up all the stairs to the Gryffindor tower, and when he arrived, he mindlessly said "fortuna major," the password to the Fat Lady's portrait.

Nothing happened.

He looked up, only to see that the painting was missing its titular depiction and was slashed with a knife three times and pried open off the wall. Harry stood there for a few seconds merely staring, his brain dull and unfocused after his hospital stay.

"Shit."

He pulled out his wand – to what, poke someone in the eye with it? – made an irritated sound in his chest as he contemplated whether or not he could manage even a small jinx.

 _Maybe it can channel my other magicks… worth a shot, at least._

Harry slowly moved through the opening and heightened his sense of hearing. He heard rummaging _somewhere_ in the tower; the disadvantage of stone walls _everywhere_ , was the bad acoustics when it came to locating by sound. Harry slowly stepped over the one of the high-backed armchairs and turned it so he faced both stairs to the dormitories.

"Blasted rat," he heard an angry whisper, still from the vague _somewhere_. "Where are you!?"

 _Rat? Ron's rat?_

Harry waited for the man – he could tell from the voice it was a man – to come downstairs, and almost five minutes later, footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs, and this time he knew it was the boys' dorms. In the darkness of the common room, combated only by the dying fire in the fireplace, the man stepped out from the staircase and proceeded to stare at the girls' dorm's staircase. He didn't notice Harry sitting in the darkness, covered in shadows and wearing his black cloak.

"Unless you want to die, I suggest you turn around with your hands behind your head," Harry said abruptly.

The man stiffened, and when he turned to try and get a glimpse of him, Harry fired a bolt of red light right past the man's head, making him jerk away and turn away from Harry. Harry praised his mistress' teachings in deception to high heavens for that reaction; it had indeed been nothing more than red light, but the man obviously associated that appearance with some kind of harmful spell.

"What's your name?"

"Why'd you care?"

Harry focused for a moment and conjured up his will, and suddenly names, dates, and images popped into his head.

"Never mind. You're Sirius Black."

Black didn't make any move to refute or acknowledge it, and it wasn't a question.

"Why do you want Weasley's rat? I can't imagine it's worth much."

Black said nothing; just stood with his hands behind his head and looking at the stairs leading up to the boy's dorm. Harry sighed.

"Not talking's only going to make this all the harder. You have about fifteen to twenty minutes before the other Gryffindors are coming up from the great hall. If I have you at wand point, others will draw their wands as well, and someone will run off to get members of faculty. You better make me rethink that before then, because I'm the only arsehole in this castle tired enough to hear you out. Why'd you want the rat?"

The man remained quiet. Harry sighed in frustration, and he let out a mental wave, humming out of his head and into the world. He then just sat and waited. Black occasionally tried to turn to look at him, but Harry sent the red light once more every time he did. Harry waited for something to happen, and a few minutes later, he heard a very light 'pitter-patter' sound, like a rodent's footsteps. He smirked and swept his hand down at the floor, grabbing the rat as he did. The ability to summon animals from a distance with naught but a thought was a useful one at times. Harry then stood up and walked over past Black. He patted him on the left shoulder, and as he looked, Harry placed the rat in a pocket on the right side of his torn shirt. Harry then quickly scooted up the stairs, and out of sight.

"Get out while you can," Harry said, his back pressed against the stone of the staircase. "And don't let me catch you up here again."

He heard Black quickly make his way out of the common room, and Harry sighed in slight relief. He had nothing up his sleeves that could be of use when he held his wand, and that was quite a bummer in situations like that one. He looked down at his wand and couldn't help his frown. It felt so _right_ to hold it, but he had no use for it at all, at least not yet. Harry lightly knocked his head against the stone wall and headed up to the dorm.

He really needed to get some sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, however, he saw the horrifying girl, and so his sleep was a restless one. Only half an hour later was he shook awake and told that he had to go back down to the great hall to sleep because of Sirius Black. He growled in anger.

 _I should've killed him._


	9. Chapter 9

**Summer**

 _ **June 6th, 1994**_

"That was a really tough exam."

"We just had to make stuff up, really!"

"D'you know how hard it is to come up with a prediction just like that!? I was sure I'd fail."

Harry entered the great hall just after five in the afternoon. His divination exam had gone pretty well. Especially considering that he had shown a method not taught to students at Hogwarts. He stuck his hand into a small leather pouch that hung from his belt and pulled out three small pieces of wood and cast them on the table as he sat down.

"Hmm… no fish today, then."

He looked around at the table, scanning over every platter down the Gryffindor longtable. Not a single dish with fish in it. He smirked satisfied to himself and looked at the three wooden chips again. On each of them was carved a rune, which had then been burned to make it extra legible. Rune tiles were a lovely way to learn one's current circumstances. In his pouch, Harry had a set of seventy-two pieces, three of each rune, allowing for greater accuracy in his predictions. It wasn't his greatest skill – in the slightest – but he was fairly good at it. To practise it, he had taken to casting a lot every time he was going to eat, just to decide what to eat.

It had been a decent school year. He'd had no run-ins with the dementors since October, and there hadn't been a single mention of Black since November. Classes had only progressed farther without him, and while he had learned most of the first-year curriculum in terms of spells he could cast, he could only barely cast them. Either they lasted a fraction of the time they optimally should, they were easy to break, or he got less-than-desirable results, but he _could_ cast them.

Potions had never been an issue; Harry was an alchemical genius, and Potions was based on many of the same principles, even if they used ingredients he'd never heard of before. Of course, that didn't mean that he got a good grade: For whatever reason, it seemed Severus Snape hated his guts.

Transfiguration, though, also relied on alchemical principles, but the abysmal quality of his wandwork offset that by a lot. Charms fell a little into that group, as Harry understood enchantments and magical artifice, but again, this new system of magic he had to work with was, so far, incompatible with his own.

History of Magic.

Herbology had been fine. Not **good** , but fine.

He had aced DADA with flying colo– mostly flying colours; he still couldn't cast the spells required for the third-year exams, even if he could explain the mechanics of a 'hinkypunk'.

Harry began eating his dinner of beef stew, and then noticed someone… two someone's sitting down next to him, one on either side. Harry slowly looked to his right to see one of the Weasley twins. He looked to his other, and saw the other Weasley twin. He slowly swallowed his food and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

"What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing," said Right.

"We just thought we'd try and get to, y'know–" continued Left.

"– know you," they finished in unison.

•••

Fred and George came down from their own exams, which they had naturally switched in, to get some dinner before they headed off to plan an end-of-term prank.

"What'd ya think, Gred?"

"Naah, it was tough, Forge."

"Yeeaa, I thought so too."

George stopped up as they entered the great hall, his eyes locked on a particular person. Fred looked at the person, then at George; they nodded in unison, linked their arms, and skipped merrily down the length of the Gryffindor table, and finally plopped down on either side of their mysterious housemate. They were both surprised as Potter looked up at each of them; he didn't look like he usually did. Normally, he had an angry look on his face, like he was constantly pissed off. His eyes were always kind of brooding, and when he looked at you, you didn't know whether you were shitting or pissing yourself. Right now, he actually looked kind of like a deer staring at you when you came across it in the woods.

"What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing," said George.

"We just thought we'd try and get to, y'know–" continued Fred.

"– know you," they finished in unison.

Harry's left eye twitched slightly.

"What'd you want to know?"

Fred and George looked at each other and nodded.

"Have you ever considered pranking someone?"

The way his eyebrows raised and his eyes widened slightly told Fred he had not expected that question.

"No," Harry said, looking a little lost or confused. "Not really. Why?"

"We have a new product we're developing," George said, making Harry swivel his head to the other twin. "We were wondering if, mayhaps, you'd like to try it out?"

Harry turned and looked straight ahead into thin air for a few minutes. His face went through some… interesting phases as he did. It was almost like he was having an internal conversation with himself. Almost twenty seconds of tense silence later, he shrugged.

"Sure."

The twins bumped fists behind Harry's back.

"Now that you say that, would you perhaps like to help us set up a prank? Your first prank, now that's somethin' quite special," George laid it on thickly.

Harry lightly shook his head as though debating with himself a little again.

"Alright, I suppose."

This was going way better than either of them could have thought.

"Great!" they said and stood in unison. "Meet us tomorrow at ten in the common room. We'll work out the details."

As they skipped away once more, snatching a few loaves of bread on the way, they began talking hurriedly amongst themselves. With Harry 'F-ing' Potter helping them, they needed to get to planning that immediately.

•••

 _ **July 1st, 1994**_

"Forge, Harrikins, we're about to make Hogwarts history," Fred said as the three of them entered the great hall to attend the end-of-term feast. Harry gave them a strange look, but shrugged to himself. It was too late to back out now. The three of them went over to the Gryffindor table and sat down.

They were some of the last students to arrive, and Harry sat sandwiched between the twins who were almost bouncing from excitement. Harry just pulled out a small book out of his pocket and began reading it. It wasn't long, however, before the great hall was assembled.

"Students," Albus Dumbledore called out with a small smile. "Another school year at Hogwarts comes to an end. For some of you, it is your last night here. When you leave this hall after the feast, do take the time to walk the castle's corridors. Say your goodbyes and exchange addresses. Tomorrow you board the train for the last time, and I wish all of you the best for your future and your working lives. For the rest of you, I will see you again after the summer, and we will continue working towards the future. So tonight, we feast! And tomorrow, we go home to our loved ones!"

Dumbledore spread his arms, and just as he did, an explosion went off above him and a multi-coloured cloud of powder spread throughout the teachers' table. When the cloud cleared, every professor had bright yellow letters on the front of their clothes, and coloured powder was on their hats and shoulders, lightly flaking off when they shook. From the left to right, the words on the staff read "HAPPY SUMMER," and the exclamation point was nearly overlooked in favour of the appearance of the teacher it was on: Severus Snape, always in black cloaks and with greasy hair, was wearing a pink tutu over white robes with a rainbow on it with the text "The More You Know". The ensemble was finished, however, by his rainbow afro and the clown-makeup on his face.

Roaring laughter echoed throughout the great hall, and it was only spurred on by Albus Dumbledore himself laughing with the students. Only a few of the teachers seemed annoyed, however, and most of them couldn't contain their light smiles. Remus Lupin even stood up and applauded with a wide smile, despite how weak and ill he looked. Snape was absolutely livid, the fury and hatred in his eyes evident even through the clown make-up.

Harry, who was sitting down and still had his book out, looked up at the nasty teacher and smirked – he even almost smiled.

"Eat, eat!" Dumbledore called out and clapped his hands, making food appear on the golden platters. "Share your memories and stories, and be sure to relay the Weasley twins' finest joke yet at home!"

Fred and George both bowed towards the headmaster and then gave a salute each. Harry briefly looked up at Dumbledore, and the two of them locked eyes for but a moment. Before Harry could think, an image of a gargoyle Harry knew in the corridors appeared in his mind, and a taste spread throughout his mouth… was that a chocofant? The image and taste pulsed in his mind until he broke eye contact with Dumbledore and turned to eat. He spent the feast pondering about what that was. It seemed deliberate. Had Dumbledore sent him a mental message? Harry didn't know that was possible for this kind of wizard, but then again, he still had much to learn.

•••

Harry strode through the corridors, wearing his muggle clothes to board the Hogwarts Express in two and a half hours; dark blue jeans, black sneakers, a leather belt, a black Henley, and a black coat with the collar popped-up on top of the entire ensemble. He came to a halt before the gargoyle he saw in his mind at the feast. He studied it for a minute, looking around it for some kind of button or switch.

 _Oh, right. Probably needs a password of some kind._

"Uh… Dumbledore," he said and then waited for a response. Nothing came. "Ehm… t- Transfiguration? Glasses. Damnit, uhm…"

Harry rubbed his face in his hands.

 _Okay, what is it? It's got to be significant somehow. Something personal, too. It should be hard to guess, unless you get told by Dumbledore him-_

Harry pulled his hands away from his face and stared dumbly at the gargoyle for a few seconds.

"Chocofant?"

The gargoyle rumbled to life and jumped aside, and Harry raised a brow. He walked up onto the stairs, which began to move and spin gently, raising him up. He eventually reached the door at the top and knocked.

"Come in," he heard Dumbledore on the other side.

Harry opened the door and stepped inside. Just inside the circular room was a table with a host of strange silver objects, slowly moving in various ways. Books lined the bookcases around the walls, and at the other end of the room was a large desk with a lot of parchment on it. Dumbledore was standing up on a platform behind the desk, however, and underneath the raised platform it looked like there was a level below as well. Harry slowly walked across the room and up the stairs leading up to Dumbledore, and stood next to the headmaster. Dumbledore was staring out the large window, easily twice the old wizard's height, and Dumbledore stood at a very impressive height for how thin he was.

"It was a nice addition to Professor Snape's clothes, hair and face yesterday," Dumbledore said calmly, the ever-present polite smile never faltering. "I presume that was your idea."

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," Harry said. "I was as surprised as anyone else."

Harry knew full well that Dumbledore knew he was lying. Still, his basic instinct was to deny any accusation that couldn't be absolutely and definitively tied to him.

"Be that as it may, that isn't why I asked you to come," Dumbledore continued and looked Harry in the eyes. "I have some things to ask you, and I expect you to at the very least be honest in your words, if not the extent of them."

Harry felt a light pinching sensation in the back of his head, and he knew that Dumbledore was establishing a mental connection.

"The truth, even if not the whole truth."

"Precisely. I have been observing you closely the entire year, Harry, and I am beginning to get a clearer and clearer picture of who you are… and – more disturbing to me – _what_ you are."

Harry felt his heart skip a few beats, but he wouldn't let it show.

"What do you mean?"

Dumbledore's piercing blue eyes locked him down, and the sheer force of the old man's personality bore down on him. The headmaster was a far more formidable man than Harry had given him credit for when they first met. Few beings had the ability to root Harry to the spot with a single look, his mistress one of them. It wasn't any kind of magic or supernatural power; it was sheer force of will and charisma, and a rare ability, even in supernatural communities. Those stares which made you wish to do anything but move or speak. Which told you that, as long as you played nice, you would be fine, but Hell would fall if you didn't.

It wasn't as strong as Meerlinda's, but she was also Harry's mother. Dumbledore simply commanded his respect, however, and Harry was doing his hardest to not let his predicament show. His face was impassive as always, but his heart was hammering in his chest.

"Your Spartan lifestyle, for one," Dumbledore began. "You are the only student in the castle who hasn't decorated their sleeping area in any way. You never let your uniform be less than pristine and your shoes are always newly polished. You have never scribbled or drawn in any of your books, but have kept it to parchment for notetaking. Your hair is always groomed and combed, your tie never an inch off and always in the same symmetrical full-Windsor knot. You never roll up your sleeves or take off your vest, nor even undo the top button of your shirt. When you wear the uniform, you _are_ uniform, and everyone else treats it like regular clothes; undoing buttons, rolling up their sleeves, taking off their vests or ties when it becomes too hot."

Harry couldn't look away from Dumbledore's eyes as the old man paused and let his face settle into a visage as void of emotions as Harry's.

"You have never talked back to any of your teachers, nor have you spoken unless spoken to. You are always precisely five minutes early for every class, and every morning at four, when you think no one is watching, you sneak out of the castle and begin running laps around the lake and commencing your exercise regimen. You eat only what you need to just barely feel full, and you never eat anything with too much fat or sugar. You always eat only bread with butter for breakfast, a mix of vegetables and fruit along with your regular sandwich for lunch, and a meat dish for dinner. And you haven't broken from that routine until the incident in October, and you picked it up again in late November."

Harry's stomach dropped as he heard that Dumbledore hadn't just been casually observing him; he had tracked and taken note of every move Harry had made whilst at the castle, no matter how insignificant it might seem. In that one moment, Dumbledore went from a wise headmaster to a formidable and utterly dangerous potential enemy. Harry's right hand very slowly began inching its way to the back of his belt, where a sheath was placed, holding a black karambit

"That isn't the behaviour of a student, Harry," Dumbledore said gravely. "That is the behaviour of a soldier."

Harry's hand went just an inch further towards the curved knife. If Dumbledore viewed Harry as a threat, there was no way Harry could let him live; Dumbledore could utterly annihilate Harry with a single spell if what Harry had read was true, and Dumbledore didn't have his wand in his hand at present. If Dumbledore made a move to draw it, Harry had less than a second to draw and cut the man's throat. He couldn't afford to waste time if Dumbledore was going to attack him.

 _Shit. Shit, shit, SHIT! And I was even starting to like being here. Damnit! If he draws… I'm fucked! Come on, don't do it, Dumbledore, DON'T DO IT!_

Harry could feel the very beginnings of a cold sweat. His heart was pounding in his chest, and his fingers and feet seemed to cool down. His body was preparing for a fight and adrenalin was beginning to very slowly enter his bloodstream. His blood was gathering in his thigs, upper arms, and chest and back. His sight darkened a little bit at the edges, and he could suddenly see every pore of Dumbledore's skin, every little nigh-invisible hair.

 _FUCK FUCK FUCK!_

"I'm not sure whether allowing you to stay here would be safe for the other students with that look you have in your eye," Dumbledore said. "But I can't expel you because of something like that. Instead, I am hoping you can prove to me that you bear no ill will."

He looked away from Harry and at a small pedestal-like stone cylinder. Harry forced his eyes to move to the pedestal, and he saw a bright scarlet rock, nigh-transparent and scattering sunlight brilliantly on the walls.

"If you bring this stone to an old friend of mine in Paris, and he informs me that he has it in his possession, I will allow you to come back after the summer, regardless of your… _other activities_ in the holidays," Dumbledore said, and it was very clear to Harry that Dumbledore was aware of at least his nature. How he was, Harry couldn't begin to imagine.

"Why not owl it?" Harry asked, and he was surprised at how hoarse his voice sounded. He then realised that his throat was incredibly sore and that he had been tensing it the entire time.

"Because owls can be intercepted. You, I highly suspect, cannot."

Dumbledore's gaze once again landed on Harry.

"I dearly hope I am wrong in my conclusions about you. But the hand you're readying to strike me down with tells me otherwise."

Harry felt like his heart stopped beating for a moment.

"I will look past it, if you deliver this stone in good faith," Dumbledore said and moved over to the rock, parchment and string suddenly in hand. "In a way, I suppose it only makes sense, though: You have likely read up on me and my reputation, and I can only imagine how hard restraining yourself from misguidedly trying to defend yourself from me might be. You must be aware of at least some of my magical prowess, if not my skill." He wrapped the stone in the parchment and bound it together with the string. "The mere fact that you haven't already struck tells me that you do not _want_ to kill me, but are simply preparing for an attack on my part. I can assure you, you are quite safe from me."

He turned around and held out the wrapped stone for Harry to take. His and Harry's eyes made contact once more.

"I would never harm a student, much less a child," Dumbledore said gravely.

In that instant, a series of images went through Harry's head, showing a young boy quite similar to Harry, with black hair and brown eyes, who slowly grew through the images and eventually, a short glimpse at a pale, bald figure wrapped in black robes, his eyes glowing an ominous red and dozens of dark-clad figures in masks standing behind him. As if given the answer directly by Dumbledore, Harry knew what he was showing him.

"Voldemort."

"A student here, once. Just like you. I understood early on with him, too, what he truly was, and I had a suspicion about what he might yet become. And I did nothing, because he was a student and a child."

Harry stared at the headmaster of the school for a solid minute or two before his right hand came out from his coat and gingerly took hold of the parcel; his hand was pale, sweaty, and shaking lightly. Dumbledore's impressive expression cracked a very slight smile, almost a smirk.

"It seems I was right. I suppose I will see you after the summer, then." He gave a slight nod towards the door as he clasped his hands behind his back. "You may go."

Harry looked at the parcel, and at Dumbledore.

"What is it?" he asked. "And why would you need me to transport it?"

Dumbledore studied him closely in silence for a few moments before he answered.

"The Philosopher's Stone," Dumbledore finally replied. "It belongs to my old friend, Nicolas Flamel. He sent it here for safekeeping two years ago, but the threat to it has since passed."

Harry nodded slightly, and then turned to leave, only to remember something.

"Where in Paris?"

Dumbledore sent him a little smirk, and then lightly tapped his hip on the right side. Harry frowned and reached into his coat's right pocket, only to find a card in there. He pulled it out and turned it around, studying it. There was an address on it which he could only see when he held it at the right angle. Harry then looked up at Dumbledore and stared at the man for a moment, before he turned and left the office, his hands still shaking when he did.

As the door closed behind Harry, Dumbledore turned and looked out the window once again. A single tear escaped his right eye and rolled down his chin, into his beard.

"Forgive me, James, Lily," he whispered before he wiped his face and eye, and turned away from the window, heading for his desk.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Long Way 'Round**

 _ **July 1st, 1994**_

The Hogwarts Express was picking up speed as Harry sat and stared out the window, his fingers mindlessly fiddling with the philosopher's stone in his hand. He was lost in thought.

Dumbledore knew that Harry was raised with military-like discipline, though he didn't know it stemmed from his Hermetic training rather than a militaristic one. However, he did know that Harry was rigorously training and practising martial arts; that had been the last part of his regular training regimen, no way had Dumbledore missed it. A person didn't train as hard as Harry did if they didn't have a goal for the skills they honed, and Dumbledore had to know that.

Harry realised that Dumbledore likely also knew that Harry was working out his plan moving forwards and was devising one of his own. Harry couldn't help the grim smirk. He was playing a mental game of chess with one of the wisest and smartest members of the wizarding world. Dumbledore's most distinct advantage, however, lay in the fact that Harry didn't know _what_ they were playing for, or about. Harry didn't know whether Dumbledore would turn out to be an ally or enemy, but he did know that Voldemort was a distinct enemy. Not only that, but Voldemort was Harry's Mark. The Mark he was training himself specifically to kill one day. In that way, one could presume Dumbledore would be an ally, but he seemed to hold ill will towards Harry's _other activities_ , so Harry couldn't know for certain whether or not that would hamper any kind of future alliance.

For now, though, they were at a truce, at least: Harry delivered the philosopher's stone back to Flamel without incident, and Dumbledore would let Harry stay at Hogwarts.

Harry frowned lightly.

The fact that Dumbledore had explicitly said that he 'would allow him to come back after summer' would seem to indicate that he had the power to simply expel Harry as he saw fit, or to a great extent at least. It also revealed his disdain for Harry's killing, though Harry was certain that Dumbledore was _uncertain_ whether or not Harry had killed yet. Harry understood that killers with a certain mindset had certain personality traits or 'looks' about them that could give them away to others like them or those who knew what to look for. Harry didn't know whether or not he gave off that kind of look, but he knew that he rarely emoted visually.

That was both a blessing and a curse in and of itself. It meant that no one could read Harry's emotional state strictly from visual clues in his facial features, but it also meant that he had something to hide. The problematic thing was figuring out what exactly that was. It was a trade-off one had to live with; risk messing up, or let everyone know you hide things in order to negate the risk of messing up. Harry had ultimately chosen to go with the latter after much debate with Meerlinda about it.

Harry let out a sigh and leant his face on his knuckles.

Harry had originally gone to Hogwarts to be able to learn more about Voldemort and find out how to kill the bastard. Meerlinda had insisted that the man's presence had survived somehow, and she had several theories of her own. Harry had taken her at her word when he was younger, but when he had gotten older and she had taught him philosophy and logical thinking in systematic fashion, he had begun to question her, and quite a few of her actions and statements; as she put it, it was a sacrifice of her sanity and patience to teach him to be rational when he decided to put his trust in others. But Harry had discovered nothing that could be of any help to him. He had scoured the library, listened in on other students' conversations about himself, but he had found out absolutely nothing of value. He couldn't go to his teachers, because that would ruin his façade of coming to Hogwarts in order to learn magic and join his parents' world.

Then again, Dumbledore had seen right through him. Maybe Harry could start up a working relationship with him. _Truth, though not necessarily the whole truth_. Harry would have to take it up with Dumbledore another time, but if the old man was honest about that, then Harry had little doubt whether he could persuade him to start talking about Voldemort. The headmaster had already guessed at Harry's true nature as a killer, but he had presented no knowledge of any true evidence to support that hypothesis. If Harry could gain Dumbledore's trust, he could go quite far.

This errand he was to run was important. Harry himself was only in training a member of the Order of Hermes, but he practised their ancient arts, and those arts included alchemy. Harry was adept in alchemy, and so he understood the significance and power of the philosopher's stone. It was a substance – not necessarily a rock, though – which had many magically powerful properties. It could be used – in liquid form – to create the panacea, a medicine that could cure any and all ailments; Harry had tried it for himself, and while it tasted like dirt, it had cured him of cancer he developed after the ritual which enhanced his body. His old hermetic teacher had been under duress to create the philosopher's stone and use it to create the panacea, and Harry had almost died before it was ready. In a gaseous form, it could be used neutralise any toxic chemicals in the air, such as mustard or sarin gas. The rock, when in contact with a broken item, could restore it to its former state of repair, and when touched to a metal could be used as a medium for the mage to transmute it into any other metal they desired.

Handing the stone to Harry was a significant show of faith, and the young man wouldn't do anything to betray Dumbledore. It was also quite a pinch he was in: Dumbledore hadn't given Harry a timeframe within which to complete the assignment, meaning if Flamel didn't contact Dumbledore about having received the stone within – say – a week, Dumbledore would assume that Harry had run off with the stone. What exactly he would do if that were the case, Harry couldn't predict. He might spread the word in the wizarding world that Harry stole from him and fled, but that probably wouldn't go over too well. It was a coin toss who the public and ministry would believe, though. If he decided to come after Harry by himself, Harry couldn't leave the chantry for the next fifty years at least, and that was without taking into account that Dumbledore could conceivably live to become five hundred years old.

Harry shook his head and rubbed his eyes in frustration.

The only thing he could do for now was to get off at Kings Cross, and then find a train going directly to France. He might get to Paris by nightfall, but at least then there wouldn't be anyone to notice him going to Flamel's house. Although…

"The Kindred," Harry muttered to himself. "Shit."

Harry was no longer welcome in the vampiric city of Paris. He had played a hand in replacing the Prince of the city the year before he went to Hogwarts, and the traitorous leech he helped gain power made Harry the scapegoat for the operation. There was an outstanding bloodhunt on Harry in Paris, and vampires only came out after dusk. The only way Harry was safe in Paris, or at least not _directly_ in danger, was in the daytime. Harry was known as the most powerful ghoul in the city, meaning that the mortal servants of the vampires there didn't stand a chance in going up against him, but they might just follow him home to the chantry in London. Then their masters would find out that he was ghoul to a Tremere, and they might send their own Tremere to bargain with Meerlinda to hand Harry over. Of course, she would never do that, but vampires were patient bloodsuckers. He couldn't stay cooped up in the chantry for the rest of his life.

The ghouls could still pose a problem themselves, though. If they carried guns and were brazen enough, they might open fire at him without considering nearby civilians. Harry wanted to avoid collateral casualties if he could. Not just that, but they might hit him. He wasn't worried about a few pistol rounds; they rarely penetrated his skin, and when they did, they rarely got deeper than one or two centimetres. If they got him in the eye or used a higher calibre and hit him in the head, though, it would go right into his brain. He'd live through that, but he would be helpless when he was writhing, flapping and spasming on the ground because his brain couldn't send the rest of his body the right signals. A training accident had proven that. It would likely take more than two or three high-calibre rounds of an assault rifle or one high-powered anti-material rifle round to take him out through a headshot, though. His brain would heal if only a minor part of it was destroyed, but if a fourth or more was decommissioned, he wouldn't get back up. A knife in the heart would kill him only if it was left in and let him bleed through the wound that was blocked from healing. Almost all his internal organs would eventually heal, but he had to get to safety and rest in order to do it.

Harry considered himself blessed with great power, but he was also well aware of just how simple it really was to kill him. An assassin wouldn't need some obscure herb or a silver blade plunged in his heart whilst the killer muttered an exorcism. All it took was significant enough damage to his body. He was, after all, still human, so all it took was just three or four times that of what it took to kill a regular human. He could hold his breath for twenty minutes if he laid perfectly still and focused on maintaining a steady heart-rate, but without enough air or with enough water in his lungs, he would die like any human from asphyxiation or drowning. He could be poisoned and only had very little in the way of enhanced toxin resistance. He certainly wasn't immune to disease or cellular mutation, as evidenced by his bout of cancer and the occasional flu he caught. It was a testament to the power of vampires; they were beyond all these mortal concerns from their very first moment as one of the undead. They could fall a few flights of stairs and heal themselves. Harry would be lucky if he survived the fall. They break their neck, heal. Harry breaks his neck… well, he wasn't sure what would happen, and he wasn't keen on finding out.

Deciding on a plan of action, Harry placed the wrapped-up philosopher's stone back in his pocket. Just in time, too, because the next moment, Fred and George came into his compartment and placed their trunks overhead on the luggage racks.

"Gooday, Harry," they said.

"Hey," Harry returned unenthusiastically, but gave them a half-smirk nonetheless.

"Why're you so down?" George asked as he and Fred sat down on the other side of the compartment.

"Dumbledore found out Snape's _corrections_ were my idea," Harry said. It wasn't a lie.

"Ooooh," the twins gasped through clenched teeth in sympathetic pain to the soul. "Damn, we didn't know, mate."

"I know," Harry nodded and waved his hand in a manner similar to the expression 'don't worry bout it'. "I just have to do a little… extra homework over the summer."

"By the way," Fred lit up at the last word, "we're going to the Quidditch World Cup this summer! Dad got us tickets! How about you?"

"No," Harry shook his head. "Not much for sports."

"Quidditch at the World Cup levels isn't mere sport," George said, with a very fake offended tone and face. "It is athleticism taken to inhuman heights, my good sir!"

"Oh ma gawd, he dadn't knaw," Fred swooned in his own seat.

Harry did grin slightly at their antics.

"I'll believe it if I see it, how's that?"

"That's fair," Fred instantly sat right back up and resumed his normal speech pattern. It played out to fairly comical effect in Harry's opinion, and he actually chuckled genuinely.

The twins were stunned in silence, though not for long.

"Did he just–"

"I think he did, Georgie," Fred replied. "The Boy Who Scowls actually laughed for once."

"It was more of a chuckle," George countered.

"With him, that's like a laughing fit, brother mine."

"You are right about that, beloved brother."

Harry shook his head and actually smiled mirthfully as he turned to stare back out of the window.

•••

The train rolled onto Platform 9¾ early in the afternoon, and Harry had been listening to the twins explaining the game of quidditch for four hours. Surprising even himself, he had actually listened and asked about the parts they skipped over. He now knew just about everything there was to know about the game itself, though the references to teams and individual players flew right over his head.

He and the twins got up from their seats, and the twins were a little surprised that he didn't have his own luggage.

"Sent it home ahead of time," he shrugged.

He then followed the two onto the train station. A large flock of redheads were already waiting for them.

"Fred, George," the matriarch Harry saw in Diagon Alley said and gave each of her twin sons a big hug.

"Hi mum," they said at once with huge grins. "We've someone to introduce!"

Harry's eyes widened as he had begun to leave behind their backs when they turned to look at him.

"Harry, this is mum and dad," they said and pointed at the rotund woman and the tall, willowy man with very slightly thinning hair. "Mum, dad, this is Harry Potter!"

Harry stood still as he watched the redheads, still wide-eyed.

"Hello," he said in a light voice, like he was caught doing something seriously illegal.

"Hello," the Weasley patriarch said and extended his hand. "Arthur Weasley. It's a pleasure to meet you." He smiled brightly all the while.

Harry hesitated for a moment, but then extended his hand and shook Arthur's.

"Pleasure," he said in kind.

"I'm Molly," the woman said and extended her hand as well, which Harry also shook.

"I remember, from Diagon Alley," Harry said.

"Harry helped us with a prank at the end of year feast," Fred leant over to a tall, long-haired Weasley child, if Harry had to guess. "He dressed Snape up like a clown in a tutu!"

The older redhead chuckled, while someone behind them laughed very loudly. The hidden person then stepped out behind the long-haired one, revealing a much shorter one with enormous arms with burn marks on them. He had a fang of some kind hanging from his earring.

"Merlin's balls!" the short one roared. "Brilliant!"

"That's Charlie," the long-haired one explained at Harry's confused look. "I'm Bill, the oldest of us."

"Pleasure," Harry said. "Please forgive me, but I need to get going. Places to be."

Harry then stalked off with his hands in his coat pockets towards the entrance of the hidden space of the train station. He noticed Ronald was also standing behind his parents, and his jaw was hanging when Harry walked past him. He had clearly heard about Harry being responsible for Snape's alterations at the feast. Harry didn't spare Ron another glance, however, as he continued through the throngs of people, seeming to disappear in the crowd.

•••

"Sorry, but I'm not coming home just yet," Harry said into the phone he was holding inside the red box. "I've got some business to take care of in Paris before I can. I might be home in two or three days."

" _Does this have to do with the school?_ "

"It does," Harry confirmed, his eyes scanning around the phone box in search of anyone stalking him. Just to be safe. "The headmaster asked me to deliver a precious object. Said I couldn't come back if I didn't."

Meerlinda's voice at the other end of the line sighed. " _What did you tell him?_ "

"Nothing. He's been watching me all year. I don't know how, but he's been monitoring me night and day. He knows things, and I don't know how much. For now, I have no real choice but to play along. I have a plan, though."

" _You mean a half-baked idea which will develop and gain in complexity as you go?_ "

"You know me too well."

 _She sighed again. "Fine. Report to me when you touch down, and then you will report back every sixth hour until your last report right before you leave._ "

"Yes, mistress."

" _I love you_."

Harry's lips stretched into a small, genuine smile.

"I love you too."

With that, he hung up the phone and left the booth. He had a train to catch.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

This is the end of the first arc of the story. More complexity will develop as the story does, and Harry will become more fleshed-out as he develops himself. Next time, we pick up in Paris in the summer between year 3 and year 4. I hope you like it so far and will continue to follow along.

Also another note if you didn't know: I have re-published the original story under the original title, "Harry Potter, The Orphan Who Survived." If you want to read it and compare to how I write now, I would greatly appreciate feedback, both on this story as well as how it compares to the original. Please leave a review.

Thank you for reading. Until next time.


	11. Chapter 11

**The Streets of Paris**

 _ **July 1st, 1994**_

 _ **Paris, France**_

Harry stepped off the bus in the third arrondissement of Paris. He looked around and pulled up his collar a bit further as he turned down a nearby street. He walked down the street, looking between the card Dumbledore gave him and up at the houses, searching for the address. He looked back down and studied the card closer, but the evening sun had just set a few minutes earlier, and he couldn't see it well. Harry looked around for any witnesses, and then pulled his wand out of his coat's inner pocket.

"Lumos," he muttered, and the tip of his holly wand lit up with the pure white light, allowing him to read the card.

He couldn't afford any hidden spy to see his vampiric ability to see in the dark, as it would cause his eyes to glow red. Any ghoul he knew of in the city would recognise it, and every vampire would.

He looked up from the card once more and saw the house he was looking for. It looked a little out of place, though. Most buildings had been renovated, but this one was as rickety and old in style as any building in Diagon Alley. Harry stuffed the card back in his pocket and went towards the door, only for the hairs on the back of his neck to rise, and he immediately jumped backwards, landing on his back and rolling backwards to his feet as a blue light struck where his shoulder had been only a moment before. As he got up and pointed his wand in the direction the spell had come from, he saw another glowing wand held by a woman. Behind her was another woman.

" _Who are you!?_ " the woman called out in French, her wand still trained on him. He couldn't see any specific features due to the two lights between them, but he could see the woman's wand reflecting in distinctly blond hair.

" _I could ask you the same_ ," Harry returned. " _Is it custom to rain spellfire on visitors here?_ "

Another spell was sent towards him without an incantation. Harry barely had time to react at the speed the spell flew at, so he merely braced for it… only, it struck the tip of his wand, and the spell was somehow deflected off the tip of it. Harry stared at it wide-eyed, but quickly regained his composure.

 _A wand can deflect another spell? But if that was the case, you couldn't cast the disarming sp– it's tied to intent! If I have enough drive to protect myself and strike the spell, it will deflect?_

This time, a red light flew at him, and Harry swatted the spell out of the air and into the cobbled street before him. He smirked as he discovered this new feat he could pull off. He didn't even need to cast a spell.

" _I asked you who you are!_ " the woman shouted again.

" _I'm no one_ ," Harry replied. " _I'm just here visiting family. They moved recently_."

" _I may not be an auror, but I know lies when I hear them. You're going to rob the Flamels_."

Harry perked up at that comment.

" _No, I'm not. Please, just walk away_."

In the dark of night, the streets were silent, and Harry clearly heard a slightly younger voice, the younger woman behind the one flinging spells at him.

" _He's telling the truth, Maman_."

Harry flicked his wand and ended the light-charm. That left him in utter darkness, and he knew that the light they were still right next to blinded them to the darkness. To them, he was effectively invisible now, and so he used his incredibly honed skills in silent movement to quietly move away down another ally. He stuck to the deepest shadows right next to the walls.

" _Merde! Where did he go!?_ "

" _Maman, let's just go home! We'll tell Papa, and aurors will be here in twenty minutes at most!_ "

Harry stood stock still and watched the pair. As he watched them, he reached into the depths of his mind and called up that familiar feeling of emptiness and nothingness. Using that emotion, he pulled up a cloak of obfuscation around himself. Now, they _couldn't_ find him again, even if they tried.

" _Fleur, take my hand_ ," the older woman said.

A moment later, he heard a loud 'crack' as the light disappeared, as did the two women. He dropped his cloak of shadows and stood to his full height. Like they said, there would be aurors there soon. Harry still couldn't figure out how they knew where the Flamels lived, however, nor how they came to the conclusion that he wanted to steal from them. Harry shook his head clear of those thoughts and jogged over to the front door of the house he had looked for. He knocked a few times, and a light went on a little higher in the house.

" _Monsieur Flamel?_ " Harry called softly. " _Madame Flamel? Dumbledore sent me. I have a package for you. About the size of a large egg, pretty red?_ "

Almost a minute later, several 'clicks' were heard from the door, and it opened slowly to reveal a short man, about Harry's own height. He wasn't just short, though. He was so thin, it looked as though even a gentle breeze could break him in half like a twig. His skin and hair were almost equally pale, with his hair just a few shades whiter. He looked ancient, beyond anyone Harry had ever laid eyes upon. His skin almost seemed slightly translucent in the very faint moonlight.

The man sized Harry up, and smiled a creepy smile, his lips invisible against the colour of the rest of his face.

" _Monsieur Potter, I presume._ "

Harry blinked.

"You know of me?" he asked, mindlessly switching back to English.

"I have read about you, my boy," the man said, and took a good look at him. "Come in, come in."

The man stepped aside, and Harry stepped past him into the house.

"I am Nicolas Flamel," Nicolas said and bowed his head a little.

"Harry Potter," Harry returned and dug into his pocket. "Dumbledore sent me here with this," he said as he pulled out the small package and held it out. "The philosopher's stone."

"Ah, my greatest creation," Nicolas said, though 'said' was saying something. It almost sounded like he was constantly whispering quite loudly. "I was beginning to believe I would never see it again."

"Did the elixir of life do that to you?" Harry asked as Nicolas took the small rock from him.

"No, not directly," Nicolas smiled ruefully and placed the stone on a small table next to him. "It would take too long to explain it to you, but something went wrong a few decades ago. I lost focus one day and the calcination process wasn't quite… well, you wouldn't under–"

"You'd need the calcination process to complete before you transmute the stone into it's black stage," Harry commented, "otherwise you would build up too much entropic resonance in the coming submersion in the alkahest. That's what went wrong, isn't it?"

Nicolas looked at Harry like he had just shown him proof that Santa _was_ real.

"You're an alchemist," Nicolas stated with a joyous tone. "Ah, yes. The entropic build-up was too great, and I didn't notice until too late. I aged decades in minutes – a rather painful process, I might add. Still, it didn't age me enough to put me down then. I haven't made that mistake twice."

"I see," Harry nodded. "Did your wife drink from the same batch?"

"No, no," Nicolas shook his head and his hands very gently. "She is hale and healthy, and looks no older than when I married her. She takes care of our affairs around the world, you see; maintains our friendships, gathers rare materials for my experiments, brings me home new books to read, as I am much too weak and frail to travel much anymore. Right now, though, she is out informing out friends the world over that we might not make it until the turn of the millennium, though you have just brought us our extension."

"She must be a godsend," Harry said and smiled at the immortal alchemist. "And I am an alchemist, yes."

"Have you ever transmuted a philosopher's stone yourself?" Nicolas asked curiously. "You seem to be intimately familiar with the process."

"No, but my teacher has," Harry said and looked around. "Brewed panacea to save my life from disease."

"I see," Nicolas nodded. "Looking out for one's apprentice is a great duty of any worthwhile alchemist. They might very easily make mistakes without realising it."

"She's the best. She raised me."

Nicolas nodded, and looked around as well.

"You are welcome to stay the night," Nicolas said and gestured to a couch not far away. "You mustn't have had time to sleep yet, if you came all the way from Scotland."

"Thank you, Mr Flamel," Harry bowed lightly with a polite smile. "I appreciate it."

"Make yourself at home," Nicolas said and slowly retrieved his wand from a pocket in his robes. He then conjured a blanket and a pillow. "I'm afraid it's not much," he said with a slightly embarrassed smile. "I have lost my deft touch at transfiguration."

"It's more than enough," Harry shook his head lightly as he graciously accepted them. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"I bid you goodnight, then," he said and slowly turned around. "I was just headed to bed myself." He took a few steps towards the spiral stairs, until he turned back and looked at Harry. "Er, would you mind getting some breakfast for us tomorrow in the morning? I'm afraid I have kept forgetting to buy more food."

"Of course, Mr Flamel," Harry said with a smile. "It's the very least I can do."

"Thank you, my dear boy," Flamel smiled kindly. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Mr Flamel."

Unfortunately, that was just when a knock came from the door. With a weary sigh, the ancient alchemist put on another smile and was about to start shuffling towards the door, but Harry was already over there and opened the door. Outside stood a couple of aurors, judging by the trench coats they all wore. They immediately moved back and reached for their wands when they saw him. Harry acted quickly.

" _Monsieur Flamel, it's the aurors_ ," Harry said and stepped to the side, allowing them to see the old alchemist. " _What should I tell them?_ "

Flamel smirked lightly, and then looked at the aurors.

" _May I help you?_ "

The aurors looked between each other, and relaxed their stances.

" _We received word that an unsavoury individual was lurking around your house, Master Flamel_ ," one of the ones in front said and sized Harry up. " _It would seem the report was wrong, then_."

" _My nephew is all but unsavoury, monsieur_ ," Nicolas said, drawing Harry's attention.

" _Nephew?_ " the auror asked with suspicion.

" _Well, nephew's many times great-grandson_ ," Flamel waved dismissively. " _It makes little difference to me_."

The auror didn't seem quite satisfied, though he wasn't about to argue with one of their nation's greatest sorcerers.

" _We are very sorry to have disturbed you, Master Flamel_ ," the auror said and bowed apologetically.

" _It is quite alright_ ," Nicolas said, even though he looked tired enough to drop where he stood. " _Now, if you do not mind, I would like to sleep_."

" _Of course, Master_ ," the auror said. " _Sleep well_."

With that, Harry closed the door whilst smiling at them. Just before it closed, however, he caught a glimpse of the women who were attacking him earlier; they were as beautiful as any women he had ever seen, and the younger one made him stop in his tracks for a moment. With the light cast by the many aurors, he saw her silver hair flowing down her shoulders and the sky-blue eyes which looked at him with awe. Harry assumed it would be that she had heard Nicolas call Harry his nephew. He then closed the door completely.

As he turned, he saw Flamel shuffle towards the stairs, though he faltered even at his snail's pace. Harry walked over to the old man and took hold of his shoulder and elbow, helping the wizard up the stairs. Nicolas smiled gratefully at Harry as he guided him to his bedroom.

"Goodnight, Master Flamel," Harry said with a smile.

Nicolas just nodded with a weary smile and shuffled over to his bed. Harry closed the door and headed back downstairs. As he laid on the couch, trying to fall asleep, his mind kept wandering back to the girl he had seen. 'Girl' was a bit misleading, though: She looked like a grown woman, but the fact that she had not drawn her wand along with who he could only presume to be her mother – based on their incredibly similar appearance and her calling the woman 'maman' – told him that she was still underage. His mind just went back to her look of awe, and yet also suspicion and distrust.

As he fell asleep, he kept thinking about the French girl… and the worst part, he had no clue why.


	12. Chapter 12

**Apprenticeship**

 _ **July 2nd, 1994**_

Harry walked through the streets early the next morning, looking for a baker. It was strange that one remained so elusive in _France_ , but he didn't give up. There had to be a bakery open somewhere. He strode along the streets, having left the third arrondissement long ago, and he was beginning to be frustrated. Jewellers and clothing shops were of no use to him.

Turning down a larger road, he finally saw a bakery, and jogged over to the shop. Entering, he walked up to the teller, a pretty girl about his own age, and flashed her a smile which made her blush.

" _Good morning_ ," he said. " _Anything you could recommend for a lovely breakfast?_ "

" _Ehm_ …" she hesitated, attempting to fight down her blush. " _Something simple, or for your girlfriend?_ "

" _Irrevocably single, I'm afraid_ ," Harry smirked, bringing the girl's blush back with full force. " _My grandfather asked me to get something_."

" _Oh_ ," she lit up, and moved over to a small display of several types of baguettes. " _Well, this one is quite easy on the stomach for the elderly_ ," she said. " _I would pair this with a gruyere sliced on top. We have a good one in the dairy section over there_ ," she gestured at a refrigerator.

" _I'll take it, then_ ," Harry said and walked over to the refrigerator, grabbed the cheese, and walked back to the teller who was bagging the bread for him. She listed the cheese in the machine as well. " _Could I trouble you for some pain au chocolat as well?_ "

" _Certainly_ ," she nodded happily and grabbed the requested pastries. " _That will be twenty-two franc_."

Harry fished a small handful of coins out of his pants' pocket and counted them out. He then placed the amount in the girl's hand and accepted the paper bag with a charming smile. The smile instantly fell as soon as he was turned away, however, and was replaced with his usual empty – even almost vacant – expression.

He left the bakery, only to be bumped into by a flock of young men a few years older than himself.

" _Watch yourself!_ " one of them angrily shouted.

Harry stared after them with his hollow stare, but mentally shrugged and started walking back the way he came, only to hear a shout suddenly cut short. His hackles raised at the sound, and before he could start moving away, his hearing dimmed to his surroundings and moved to the source of the sound. His instincts were overpowering his rational mind, and he wasn't having it, until he heard what was being said.

" _Get away from me_!" he heard the female voice. " _I have to put up with you at school, I have no intention of doing that outside of it_!"

" _Oh, come on! You know you want me, flower_." The voice sounded confident, and he distinctly placed it as the young man who bumped into him just half a minute before.

" _You disgust me, Jean_ ," the woman countered angrily. She didn't sound scared, though. " _You and your friends are just desperate losers who can't take no for an answer!_ "

 _Have to admit_ , Harry thought as he turned to the source of the sounds and began walking despite his better judgement, _she's got guts. Now if only my body would respond to my mind, that would be great._

Harry sighed as his feet carried him off.

 _Aaaaaaany time, now, feet._

Sometimes, he hated his more animalistic instincts. It was a wild guess as to who constituted kin to that particular part of him, and it wouldn't let him abandon kin.

He rounded the corner into the alley and saw the same girl he had seen the previous night being surrounded by several guys, most of them with what could only be described as 'lecherous smiles'. Harry knew full well what they were thinking, seeing as he could smell the pheromones rolling off them: His nose was rarely that sensitive, those guys were just utterly hormonal. He sighed and grimaced internally.

 _Fine. You win._

"Ey," he called out completely unenthusiastically. "Back off. She's clearly not enjoying it." He was so unenthusiastic about the situation, he didn't even bother speaking French. Like, absolutely uninterested. No thrill. At all. What–so–ever.

The group of boys looked over, and the one who bumped into him snarled.

" _Back off, English dog_!" he shouted. " _This isn't your business!_ "

He and the other boys began laughing, thinking Harry didn't understand French.

"I'm giving you five seconds to drop this and walk away," Harry said coldly. "If you stick around, I'll consider it an attack."

One of them laughed and drew a wand and aimed it at Harry. The rest laughed as well.

" _DO IT_!" one of them exclaimed.

" _NO_!" the girl called out, her face screwed up in a particular mix of frustration, anger, and desperation. Harry's open mind, however, picked up on the more subtle clues to her desperation; he felt her admiration for order and law. " _You can't, not to a muggle!_ "

"A stick?" Harry asked, unimpressed.

"A filzy myggle like yu wyldn't ynderstand," the guy holding the wand said in truly broken English.

"Oh?" Harry couldn't help but smirk, but now he was slightly amused. The tickle in his chest was rising. "Muggle? I'm afraid you misunderstand." He then held up a slender piece of wood. "You're holding a stick; I'm holding your wand."

Looking down, the man gaped at the simple wooden stick in his hand, seemingly just picked off a sapling tree. When he looked back up at Harry, he screamed out when Harry, without hesitation, snapped the wand in half with one hand. Harry's smirk spread, and he felt the tickle in his chest become greater and greater.

" **Woops** ," he said darkly, his voice changing ever so subtly and gaining a more throaty, raspy quality to it. His bright green eyes even seemed to fade slightly in intensity. " **Well, whatever. Your five seconds are up**."

They all then drew their wands, but Harry seemed to disappear into thin air, only for one of the guys at the other end of the alley to suddenly crumple over with a 'thump' and a groan. Turning around, they saw Harry with his fist planted solidly in the man's gut, and with a devilish smirk of genuine amusement, he seemed to flicker out of existence again. The second guy went down in the middle, and all around him, the remaining three went down as well as Harry reappeared in the middle. His breathing had picked up, and sweat was beginning to escape his pores and run down his face with exertion.

"Fine!" one of them muttered angrily. "Keep the slut!"

He got a foot straight in the face, and blood splattered onto the ground, but Harry's foot was already gone again, revealing the three teeth falling out of the downed guy's mouth.

"That's no way to talk about a lady," Harry practically growled, and his eyes faded even more in colour, becoming a dull yellow for but a moment. He then took a few breaths and closed his eyes. He stood there silently for a few moments, just breathing and relaxing, and when he turned to the girl behind him, his eyes were vibrant, emerald green again, and he had donned his usual expression. " _You alright?_ "

"You're the guy from last night," she said in quite good English, pulling away from him. "At the Flamels' house."

"So you do remember me," Harry said. "I must admit, I wasn't aware attacking other wizards was a custom in the magical community in France."

"It isn't, but no one goes poking around in the Third," she said and pressed her back to the wall. It was clear she was scared of him, even if her face betrayed nothing. "Not without an invitation."

Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out the card, showing it to her. Her eyes widened at the sight of it.

"Not a party-crasher. I genuinely was expected. Thanks for calling the aurors on me."

Her right hand reached for her pocket, but then went back to pressing against the wall.

"Why'd you be dumb enough to leave your wand at home if you knew you could run into these guys?" Harry asked and took a step away. She might be more cooperative if he gave her space.

"I only turn seventeen in two months," she explained, eyeing him suspiciously. "How old are you, anyway? You cast a spell last night, and you aren't under arrest."

"Turn fourteen in thirty days," Harry shrugged. "My ministry doesn't have jurisdiction here, and I'm not a citizen here. As far as underage magic goes, I'm untouchable while here, really."

Harry wasn't sure whether that was actually true, though. He had cast the light spell without thinking about the possible consequences. Would he be facing charges when he got back to England? Harry looked down at the guy he stomped in the face.

"Why'd they go this far out of their way to harass you?"

 _There you go Harry, meddle why don't you! LEAVE, DAMNIT! THIS ISN'T YOUR GODDAMNED FIGHT!_

 _ **Shut it**_ , a voice he had never heard in his head before said. _**Learning never hurts, and experience is invaluable**_.

The voice was deep, far deeper than humanly possible. It also sounded old. Dark and gravelly. Harry felt a prickling sensation in his left eye, but he ignored it. And the origin of the voice had to wait.

"School things," she said. "Nothing to concern yourself with."

Harry's right eye began glowing a very faint blue for just a few moments, making the girl flinch away, and he frowned.

"But there's more to it, no?" he asked. "You're not hum– well, not _entirely_ human. So what is it? Werewolf? Cambion?"

She didn't answer. Merely stared at him with suspicion. A stray thought escaped her, and Harry's mind fortunately caught it quite swiftly.

"Veela, eh?" Harry muttered with a smirk, especially when her eyes widened and she took a little step back. "Yeah, that'd do it." Harry then turned away and started walking, his paper bag under his arm. "Take up martial arts," he called behind himself at her. "Does wonders for helplessness, _and_ your body."

He gave her form a look: Dark blue jeans, just tight enough to rouse a healthy young man to indecent thoughts; a white tank-top that could bring out the same; an open white blouse with the sleeves rolled up; and a few bracelets, rings and a necklace topping it all off. Harry did notice, however, that what he thought was blond hair, wasn't blond at all; it was silvery white with a blond sheen, and the way it combined with her silver-blue eyes was absolutely stunning. Harry actually had to brace himself before he could leave, something which caught him off-guard.

 _Veela, right._

He then left her there in the alley, and he could only hear one thing, all the sounds of the city blocked out by his mindscape. A single little thought his mind caught once more.

 _Thank you._

•••

Harry served the plate of an egg omelette and some buttered baguette with cheese before the ancient alchemist at the table.

"Thank you, Mr Potter," Nicolas thanked the boy and began picking apart the omelette.

"Of course," Harry said and sat down on the other side. "Is your wife coming home anytime soon?"

"Not for another month or so," Nicolas smiled, not quite as weary now. "It will be difficult, but I will manage."

"I can stay until then," Harry offered after taking a sip of his coffee. "I have no plans for the summer, and I suspect, if you're willing, I could always use some help with learning magic."

"A trade?" Nicolas smirked. "Well, I can afford to take on an apprentice for a while. I have nothing to do until Perenelle brings back some new things to play with, anyways." The alchemist's wizened eyes looked Harry up and down. "Very well. But not alchemy. I have never taken an apprentice in alchemy."

"Well, it would have been the opportunity of a lifetime, but I can live with that," Harry smirked. "I am having great difficulty with my wand."

"Have you thought about getting a proper one?"

"It is a proper one," Harry said and placed his wand on the table. "I just have difficulty learning how to use it properly. My alchemy is based in an entirely different system of magick."

Flamel looked at him with curiosity, and then waved his own wand, conjuring a small pebble.

"Transmute this to iron," Nicolas said. "Without your wand."

Harry smirked, and reached into his coat. He pulled out a piece of chalk and drew two circles on the table, one larger and a smaller within. From the outer circle, he then drew several lines in straight patterns, though with strange angles. Little of it seemed to line up, but he then put down the chalk, grabbed a piece of coal from a small plastic bag in one of his pockets and crushed it, sprinkling it over the pebble. He then folded his hands in a particular manner and closed his eyes. Red light emitted from the pebble, and when it died down a few seconds later, it was a small clump of raw iron.

Nicolas smirked.

"It has been a long time since I dealt with the Order. And here you are, just waltzing into my home with my most prized creation on orders from Albus Dumbledore," he said with a smile. "Fate certainly is a fickle mistress."

"No," Harry said and leant back in his chair. He smiled. "Fate is a tough lover."

Nicolas laughed at the analogy.

"I will train you, boy. But you must listen closely and pay attention, otherwise my time is wasted."

"You have plenty of it," Harry gestured at the small table where the philosopher's stone was still lying wrapped in parchment.

"True."

"But others don't."

"Also true." Nicolas said and rubbed his chin a little. "Very well. I will train you. And we can start right now, as a matter of fact."

"Alright," Harry said and grabbed his wand. "What do I do?"

"Start washing the dishes," Flamel said, smiling as he turned his piece of baguette over and began smearing the butter on the plate. "With only your wand."

Harry stared at the old man.

The old man smiled at him.

"If I break a plate, it's on you."

"Fair enough."


	13. Chapter 13

**Training**

 _ **July 4th, 1994**_

"The first thing you need to understand, Mr Potter, is that magic as we know it relies, more than anything, on imagination, intention, and willpower. You must be able to imagine what it is you want to happen; you must then shape that mental image with the intent of what you need to do; and finally, your strength of will pushes the magic to respond to your desires. Magic is quite simple in some ways, even though it might be difficult for you: You are used to having to design symbols and diagrams which direct your focus and the to use instruments symbolising your might as a wizard and your supreme will as a manipulator of the world around you.

"You must abandon these preconceptions before the ways of wizardry will be open to you. Not entirely, of course; you can still use your hermetic methods, but you must cast them aside when you cast spells. Otherwise, you will never be able to truly grasp your inherited power. Let us begin."

•••

 _ **July 14th, 1994**_

"– and so, you can view transfiguration as a very simple form of alchemy."

"Because any transfiguration is only temporary in contrast to a permanent transmutation, where the very nuclear structure is altered," Harry nodded and scribbled down some notes.

"Indeed," Flamel said with a slight nod as he sat on the other side of the table. "However, now we get to the trickier stuff; because transfiguration spells' effects _can_ be extended through one of several means. You could enchant the object with a charm to make it tougher; you could simply pour more energy into the transfiguration; you could even–"

•••

 _ **July 19th, 1994**_

"But you don't need wand-movements," Nicolas said and flicked his own wand, making several things happen at once; a kettle of boiling water lifted off the stove and floated towards them; tea cups left the opening cabinets; a pair of teabags jumped out of a tin on the kitchen table; and then they all combined at their table, preparing tea quite perfectly. "It simply makes the spells cast more reliable and energy-efficient. You would need supreme concentration to be able to cast a spell wordlessly and without wand-movement without sacrificing any properties of the spell, and that is without mentioning wandless magic."

Harry looked up from his notes, his face as stoic as ever.

"Wizards can use magic without their wand? I thought the entire paradigm was reliant on them."

"It takes immense skill and power to use magic wandlessly for us," Nicolas nodded. "Not like your hermetic teachings at all. For a witch or wizard, the wand is absolutely key, whereas your Order's magic relies on a great number of things, not the least of which being ritual and meaning."

Harry nodded and scribbled on in his notes.

•••

 _ **July 23rd, 1994**_

"Now do it without an incantation."

Harry furrowed his brow and scrunched his nose as he drew an invisible shape in the air with his wand. The utterly splintered chair slowly began piecing itself back together, splinter by splinter, as he kept repeating the pattern with his wand. In the end, the formerly obliterated chair was whole once more, and Harry smirked.

"Good," Flamel nodded. "Now do it again."

Harry groaned on the inside, which manifested only as a slight growl on the outside, and then aggressively flicked his wand in a 'V' shape, reducing the chair to a pile of splinters once again.

•••

 _ **July 28th, 1994**_

"In contrast to occlumency, though, legilimency is the art of intrusion into the mind, rather than defending it. The sword to occlumency's shield, if you will."

"I suppose Dumbledore's a legilimens?" Harry asked and sent Flamel a serious glance.

Nicolas studied Harry closely for a few moments.

"I presume you noticed the way he looks into your eyes?"

Harry nodded.

"Albus has never been particularly… outspoken in his own opinions, unless asked. However, he also rarely asks questions he doesn't already know the answer to. And he gets the information he wants from people."

"He steals it from their minds."

"Yes and no," Nicolas said, adopting a grandfather-mentor explanation-time stature and facial expression. "He is much like you, I suppose."

Harry perked up and he stared at Flamel, his face no different from before but his eyes displayed suspicion. Flamel smirked lightly.

"I'm six-and-a-half-hundred years old, boy," the old man said. "Albus couldn't hide his nature from me, and neither can you. The two of you are quite similar in some ways, really. But anyway, he knows people the same way you do: The two of you sample the surface emotions of people around you, which give you a rough estimate of their current state of mind; then you can narrow in on _why_ they feel the way they do by sampling surface _thoughts_ , and from those thoughts, you can piece together quite a bit about them by applying information you already possessed. Like giving yourself more pieces of a puzzle when others are trying to keep them from you."

Harry didn't relax.

 _This guy… how much does he know?_

"Calm down, Mr Potter," Nicolas chuckled lightly. "I never told anyone about Albus' personality, and you were already well on your way to finding out. Why should I tell anyone about yours?"

"You could tell Dumbledore," Harry suggested.

"Why would I tell him something he already knows?"

Harry's left eye twitched.

"Why would he send you to me, Mr Potter?" Nicolas smiled and leant slightly forward. "To deliver a package? He could deliver it himself in an hour. To learn from me? You could learn from him. Or perhaps, it might be for perspective; should you continue the path you've already set yourself on… or should you consider alternate paths?"

"What'd you mean?" Harry asked, his voice beginning to strain.

"No one knows this, but Albus was in a dark place when he first sought me out," Nicolas sat back once more, his pleasant smile still in place. Like a reminder, that Harry was at his mercy. "Have you ever heard about his youth?"

"No. Just that he studied alchemy with you and defeated Gellert Grindelwald in 1945."

"Hmm," Nicolas hummed lightly. "It was fairly common knowledge back in the day that he and Grindelwald had a past together. To what extent, who knows? But Grindelwald declaring war on most of the wizarding world sent Albus into a downwards spiral. When he first came to me, he looked much like you, really. He was at a point where he needed something – anything, really – to help him take his mind off… things. And I suspect he sent you to me for the same reason."

"I don't have anything to take my mind off," Harry shrugged.

"Not even Voldemort?" Nicolas asked.

Harry tensed and sat up straight again.

"You don't become a killer when nothing's wrong, boy," Nicolas continued, his smile fading and being replaced with a very serious demeanour. "You become a killer when you have someone to kill. And I would recognise the look in your eyes anywhere. I've seen it plenty in my lifetime. But what about after Voldemort?"

Harry placed his elbows on the table and folded his hands together, a thoughtful pose.

"What'd you mean?"

"Voldemort is just one more dark lord," Flamel weakly waved his hand dismissively. "He may conquer Britain, or someone may stop him, probably you. Else your training and your killing up to now would just be in vain."

Harry's hands clenched around each other.

"I had someone investigate this 'yellow-eyed demon' in London whilst you were busy running errands for me," Nicolas said, studying his short-term protégé closely. "But if you do defeat Voldemort, what will you do then? Go somewhere private and kill yourself? Start travelling the world in search of upstart dark lords to take on afterwards? But what if there's another road for you to travel?

"You need to take time to think about what I'm telling you, Mr Potter. Do you want to have at least some chance at a marginally happy life? Do you want _peace_? Quiet? If you do, you'll have to start working at it now, boy. Voldemort is only _one_ facet of your life, and you can't let that dictate the rest of it. Mark my words, Harry; you'll suffer for the rest of your life if you don't take the time to just _feel_ , and to _create bonds_."

Harry looked into the elder wizard's eyes. There was a strange kind of concern in them, but it was overshadowed by the very seriousness of the situation.

"Think about it," Nicolas then said, and very slowly stood up. "I hope to meet you again once Voldemort is gone."

"You have faith I'll defeat him?"

"If you won't, someone else will, eventually. If you live, come see me again. If not… well, it was interesting to get to know you. I expect you will be gone in the morning?"

"Yes. I'm taking the train at seven."

"Then I bid you _adieu_ , Mr Potter, and good luck."


	14. Chapter 14

**The Cup**

 _ **July 29th, 1994**_

 _ **London, England**_

 _ **Wake up, Harry.**_

Harry jerked awake as the train ground to a halt on the English station, and Harry looked around for who talked to him. No one was immediately obvious, but Harry couldn't afford to linger. He needed to get back to the chantry, to his mistress. He left the train and walked down the platform, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking around as he did. He had things to do, and Flamel's words couldn't intrude on that, no matter how much Harry wanted to think about them. Harry wrote it off for the time being. He could deal with it later.

"I hear you've been quite productive the past month," came the voice of Albus Dumbledore, and Harry stopped and looked to his right. The headmaster was standing next to one of the pillars, his hands interlocked in front of him as he looked at Harry, then sent a glance at the ground next to him.

Harry looked around at the many muggles passing them by, and he sighed very faintly as he stepped into the shadow of the pillar. As he did, he felt like he stepped through a curtain of lukewarm water, and he noticed that the sounds around him muffled, as though he was underwater.

"Privacy spells," Harry said and looked for the invisible barrier he had just stepped through.

"Indeed," Dumbledore said. "Quite handy when having a conversation with muggles about."

"I bet."

"I am pleased that you delivered the stone as I asked."

"You didn't leave me much of a choice, Headmaster," Harry said and leant against the opposing pillar to the one Dumbledore stood by. "If I didn't do it, you'd be one step closer to expelling me."

"Perhaps," Dumbledore. "But you are quite unlike any of the other students, are you not?"

"I'm quite unlike any student in the world," Harry shrugged. "I don't hear a lot of other children boasting that they survived the killing curse."

"Not even yourself, either. But that wasn't what I was talking about, and I know that you know that."

"Are we really going to play 'I know that you know', Professor?" Harry asked and looked at Dumbledore. "Because it could become a damned long one."

"Humour me, then," Dumbledore said. "Just for a few rounds."

Harry let out a long exhale as he looked at Dumbledore with tired eyes, and the same calm, vacant expression.

"Fine. I know that you know that I'm not human."

" _Entirely_ human, Harry," Dumbledore corrected him. "No _entirely_ human. You are still human. And I know that you know that Voldemort isn't truly gone."

"But he _is_ dead," Harry countered. "For now."

"I'm not so sure about that. I presume you're aware of methods of attaining extended life. Would you mind telling me which you know?"

"Longevity philtres," Harry sighed, "vampirism, lichedom, enchantments, body-enhancing rituals, repeated possession… mummification?"

"Mummification?"

"Someone told me something about mummies sometime in the past… five years, I think," Harry shrugged. "Something about ancient Egyptian sorcerers performing magic that lets them… reincarnate or something, I don't know."

"Hmm," Dumbledore hummed with a curious expression on his face. "Interesting. But more interesting is what you know about lichedom."

Harry studied Dumbledore for a few moments before he replied. Something about the way he asked was suspicious.

"The witch or wizard places their soul, or at least a part of it, in a phylactery, which anchors them to the earthly plane. As long as the phylactery remains intact, their soul cannot pass beyond the shroud between our world and the world of the dead. That gives them to find a new body, or have minions create one, that they can inhabit. A form of pseudo-immortality, really."

"Good," Dumbledore nodded. "In our society, we call such items horcruxes."

"And you think that's what Voldemort has done," Harry said and looked out at the muggles passing them by, resting his head against the wall. "He's created a phylactery."

"I do," Dumbledore said. "But there are other things I must learn before I can say anything for certain. And I have some… forebodings."

"Like?" Harry said and looked at Dumbledore again, though this time with a tight-lipped smile, his lips folding inwards. He looked quite bored.

"A former Death Eater I know – Voldemort's old followers," he added at Harry's questioningly raised eyebrow, "is telling me that his Dark Mark, a magical marking on his body, is growing ever so slightly darker by the day, and has begun feeling again. It suggests that Voldemort might be getting closer to his physical body once more."

"I thought it was blown to dust in the attack," Harry countered.

"Like you said, his followers could be creating a new one for him," Dumbledore countered Harry's counter. "If that is the case, then I am quite certain that something will happen, sooner rather than later."

"What will happen?"

"I haven't the faintest," Albus said. "But it is _something_."

Harry lifted his left hand and rand it across his face and up through his hair.

"Why're you telling me this?" Harry asked.

"I would like you to–"

"Another errand?" Harry interrupted him.

"You don't have to do it if you don't want to," Dumbledore sent Harry a look that Harry couldn't read. "But I have a sneaking suspicion that with the darkening of Voldemort's brand, old Death Eaters might begin to reappear. The ministry is hosting the Quidditch World Cup in two weeks' time in Dartmoor, Devon. With that many potentially muggleborn present, it could prove too much temptation for the old guard. If you go, and if you capture one of them, you might be able to learn more about what is happening on Voldemort's front."

Harry still studied Dumbledore closely. It was clear to him that Dumbledore could tell a lot about Harry, like Flamel could. It wasn't mental intrusions giving him information, however; ever since his time in Dumbledore's office, Harry had made sure to ward off his mind every morning when he woke up and every evening when he went to sleep. But Harry also knew that Dumbledore probably wasn't like this most of the time. He at least was somewhat aware of _how_ Harry was, but he didn't necessarily know _what_ Harry was; a killer. The old man… he was clever, damned clever. Too clever by half, in Harry's opinion. He knew that he had to use a threat or personal incentive to drive Harry to do something; there was no use in appealing to Harry's _humanity_ – whatever that meant – or _compassion_. Harry just didn't care, and he knew that Dumbledore knew that; the way he had positioned both the task of delivering the incomplete philosopher's stone and the idea of going to Dartmoor, indicated that quite clearly.

"Oh, by the way," Dumbledore said, "the ministry has sent me an army of owls. Apparently, you've been using illegal underage magic quite prolifically in France."

Harry's heart sank. But the way Dumbledore worded that…

"Of course, I could tell them that you were receiving private tutoring from an old friend of mine in order to catch up with two years of magical education that you missed…" he trailed off, looking up at one of the clocks.

"You bastard," Harry said as his eyes narrowed, and Dumbledore's head turned to look at him with a curious stare. "Are you ever going to stop blackmailing me? You don't exactly look like the typical 'good guy' from my point of view, Dumbledore, or you wouldn't have stooped so low to begin with."

"Sometimes, Harry," Dumbledore said and turned his body towards the young man, "we need to do things that sicken us to our very core in order to serve the greater good." Dumbledore's eyes were ablaze with something Harry couldn't recognise. "I hope you will learn one day exactly what sacrifice means."

"I know sacrifice!" Harry almost shouted.

"Do you?" Dumbledore asked, and while his eyes hadn't dimmed the slightest, his voice and face remained perfectly calm. "Do you truly understand sacrifice, Harry? The very deepest depths of it, from which you can never go back?"

Harry was about to retort, but it got caught in his throat. He felt the many small scars on his hands, arms, and torso heat up in his anger, but for some reason, he couldn't find the words he was looking for. Because he had the distinct feeling that Dumbledore wasn't talking about the sacrifice of wounding yourself to gain power. And if not that… then what sacrifice was he talking about? Sacrificing one's life for another? That was just an exchange; a life for a life, prioritising which was more important.

Harry was broken out of his thoughts, however, when Dumbledore suddenly vanished with a soft 'plop'. He sighed, irritated. He knew Dumbledore would expect him to go; otherwise he wouldn't have confronted Harry. But the whole situation was annoying, especially because he had even _read_ it before; just like Bellerophon, he was being sent places by others with no real agency of his own. And the worst part was that Harry knew he was going to Dartmoor in two weeks; Dumbledore had stirred that damned curiosity and will to defeat Voldemort Harry carried around. If he could really gain information from a Death Eater, a _follower of Voldemort_ , it was an opportunity he couldn't reject.

"Son of a bitch!" he shouted and punched the wall.

About a dozen muggles around him stopped in their tracks and looked at him with shocked, wide eyes. Harry growled, and then stuffed his hands back in his pockets and stalked off angrily.

 _Fucking Dumbledore! Argh!_

•••

Harry entered the tall, circular room that was the main room of the chantry, a building beneath an abandoned church that was once a stronghold of the Tremere clan in England. The walls were covered almost entirely in hieroglyphs no taller than the length of Harry's thumb. It had likely taken a decade, if not more, to carve them all. The architecture did remind him a lot about Hogwarts on the inside, though, and for a moment he felt the anger at Dumbledore swell inside his chest. But he let it go as he opened his inner third eye to the veritable fortress of magic, and let the feeling of home and love enter him. He could almost laugh at the sensation, and a few tears rolled down his cheeks. It was _home_ , and he had felt so empty without it for months.

"Care to explain where you've been?" he heard the strict and angry voice of his mistress from behind him, and he turned mid-air as he jumped from being startled by the aura of anger rolling off her.

Harry looked at her for a mere moment before he knelt down before her.

"Forgive me, mistress," he said hurriedly. "The man I delivered the package to trained me in using my magic until his wife could come back. He's old and frail, and I offered to stay and do chores if he would teach me."

"What if someone had seen you?" she asked quite coldly, her anger barely contained. "What if you had been dragged before the prince, if you even survived a sighting?"

"I took great care, mistress," Harry said. "I never ventured out at night, and I always occulted myself before going out at day. I took every precaution I could, and no one saw me. No ghoul could have perceived me."

He held his head low and stared into the floor as his heart thundered in his chest. Keeping his breathing calm was difficult to say the least, as he felt like he was running a marathon at twenty kilometres an hour. Meerlinda was harsh in punishment, even if it was rarely dished out.

"Look at me."

Harry looked up into his mistress' eyes, and her brow furrowed.

"You should have come home sooner, or at least stopped by before leaving," she said. "You need to shave."

"Shave? I don't grow a beard ye–" and then he realised what she was talking about. His gut lurched. "Is the enchantment failing?"

"Not yet," she said and looked at him. "Your growth is slowing down again."

Harry then reached his hand up to his chin, and felt the hair _pushing out of his face_. It was continually growing rapidly, though after a few seconds, he felt it stop.

"You were lucky, but you should have noticed yourself," Meerlinda said and walked off. "Next time, it will happen quicker."

Harry stood and felt his beard, a few centimetres long. He rushed into his room, adjacent to the entrance hall, and into his bathroom. He stared into the mirror, and saw that his hair had grown a good ten centimetres or so, and he was sporting a somewhat light beard, though the hairs grew darker the closer to his skin they got. He then looked at his shirt, and noticed that it was very slowly stretching tighter around his chest.

"Shit," he muttered and grasped the sink, taking deep breaths.

A ghoul's life was a potentially eternal one; a regularly-fed ghoul didn't age at all, and so could theoretically serve his or her domitor, or master, forever. But Harry hadn't drunk Meerlinda's blood in years; instead, she had devised a ritual which linked the two together whilst they were in the chantry, which Meerlinda very rarely left. As long as they were both in the chantry, their blood was continually exchanged; Harry didn't need regular feedings to sustain his ghouldom and all his blood became vitae so that he could sustain himself indefinitely, and Meerlinda was continually given Harry's constantly-regenerating human blood so that she didn't have to leave the chantry and feed. It was a mutually beneficial system – a symbiotic relationship, one might say.

However, if a ghoul wasn't fed after a month had passed for whatever reason, their body would start to rapidly age to their true age. A ghoul could hold this off for a month by using a little of the blood they already had, and it was generally accepted that ghouls who were completely suffused with their domitor's blood, like Harry was, could sustain themselves in this manner for somewhere between six months and a year. It would seem that Harry had been away for just a little too long, and his body had started to age to catch up to him, which wasn't something he could afford inside this chantry.

The ancient hermetic that had trained Harry had placed a spell on the chantry, a powerful one; inside the chantry, time passed by quicker than in the outside world. That meant that Harry would have almost a year for every real month he spent inside the chantry. But that also meant that Harry was quite old. Around a hundred to a-hundred-and-twenty years old. If his ghouldom was to fade now, he would age beyond his natural death and turn to dust in a matter of hours. In some ways, really, he was in the same boat as Nicolas…

"The red stone is made from vampire blood, isn't it?" Harry called out.

"What?" Meerlinda asked as she entered his bathroom not a second later. She was the Chantrymaster, and so she could move instantly to any place within it with a thought.

"The red stone to create the philosopher's stone," Harry looked at her. "It's made with vampire blood, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said and absentmindedly stroked his beard lightly. "Why?"

"Just a thought," Harry said. "Do we have anything to shave with?"

"Of course," she said, and suddenly a cabinet door behind him swung open. Being Chantrymaster must be quite neat. "You think I didn't know you'd grow a beard one day?"

"Of course you did," Harry sent her a glance as he turned and grabbed the razor and shaving cream from the cabinet. "I just didn't know if you'd thought of it."

"Of course I did," she said, and then disappeared.

Harry smirked slightly and took off his clothes. He could use a bath, as well, now that he was at it. Looking at his body, he was a little surprised, though the nigh-instant beard had been a real shock. His chest and shoulders had grown and broadened. His arms and legs had stretched, and he actually heard a 'pop' and felt a tightness in his back as his torso stretched quite quickly for just a moment. He winced at it, and then wet his face, beard, and razor, letting the water run as he covered his face with shaving cream.

"I need to be more attentive," he muttered.

"YES YOU DO!" he heard a call from deeper in the chantry.


End file.
